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This. He gripped the rolled-up engine plans he’d retrieved from the hall table.This is what I care about.This is whyI’m alive.
Keep telling yourself that, you fool.
He grabbed his greatcoat, because Robertson wasn’t there to garb him, and left the house at a trot.
You can run but you can’t hide.
He needed to be at his foundry.
He’d find peace and clarity there.
Edgar did not find peace and clarity at The Vulcan.
He found billowing clouds of acrid smoke. He broke into a run.
Grafton and the engine were standing in the middle of the courtyard. The smoke was coming from the engine. That was normal.
But... the boiler was overheating. Edgar could see it from here. It shouldn’t be that glowing orange color. That color signaled... catastrophic boiler failure.
“Grafton,” he shouted. “Get back.”
His friend looked up, saw the color of the boiler, and began to run.
The explosion shook the walls, and threw Edgar to the ground, the deafening sound echoing in his eardrums.
Metal shrapnel flew everywhere. Grafton had reached safety, thank God, ducking behind a brick wall.
They always tested the engines in the middle of the courtyard for just this reason.
So much for lightweight boilers,thought Edgar bitterly.
He’d been so sure this one would hold up.
They’d cast the boiler themselves, melting the iron in the blast furnace, and he’d had them add a strengthening compound while stretching the metal as thin as it would go.
Too thin, apparently.
It hadn’t been able to withstand the pressure. They’d never convince the fire brigades to use their engines if the boiler exploded in the fire fighters’ faces.
Edgar picked himself up. “You alive, Grafton?”
Grafton appeared, coughing and shaking his head. “Bit dazed, that’s all.”
When the dust and smoke settled, men poured out of the foundry doors with buckets, dousing the still-smoking engine.
The engine was supposed to be the thing doing the dousing. Not the source of the fire.
Another failure.
“Damn it. Why didn’t it work?” Edgar asked Grafton. “Why can’t the boiler withstand the pressure? We built it stronger this time.”
“You’re the one who’s wound so tightly you’re going to explode. That’s why the designs aren’t working. You want it too much. You’re forcing it. We have to give up, old friend. We have to tell the fire commissioner that we’re not ready to demonstrate our engine yet.”
“I’ll never give up,” Edgar said. “We’ll find a way to make the boiler work.”
“We have to forge a heavier boiler, that’s the only solution.”
“No. There’s got to be a way for it to stay lightweight.”
