Chapter 5 - The Shortest Thainship Ever?

"Of course it goes backwards!" Merry sighed in exasperation. "It's got a double cone clutch system, with coaxial bevel reverse gears!"

"My dear Meriadoc," Pippin began with exaggerated patience, "it's all very well having read the manual, but you're not the one on the driving bench."

"That can soon be corrected!" Merry started to climb up. "Come on, move over."

"No, no," Pippin began to frantically heave at the lever again, whilst tugging at the steering mechanism with his other hand, causing the engine to emit a terrifying groan and deafening screech. "I'll work it out!"

Most of the hobbits, who had come to inspect the damage and see how the Thain was going to turn the engine around without knocking the rest of the fence down, ran for cover, whilst the bolder ones stood their ground, but clapped hands on their already over-burdened ears.

"The clutch!" Merry shouted. "You have to engage the clutch mechanism! You're grinding the gears to smithereens!"

"Oh! Ahhh!" Pippin's face lit up as he remembered the essential piece of tuition he had received when ordering the machine over a year ago in Dale. "This one!" He slammed the neglected bar down as hard as he could.

The engine, freed of its geared encumbrance, roared with new vigour, as Pippin finally managed to employ the reverse gear. The sudden exuberance of engine's bellow startled the enthusiastic hobbit so much, that the effect, plus a paucity of limbs required to operate all the levers at once, caused him to release the clutch mechanism rather abruptly and the steam engine lurched backwards with a mighty jolt.

Later reports claimed that the Thain had merely been showing off by executing a double backwards somersault from 10 feet up over the top of the mighty engine. Others, more concerned with interesting facts and figures, pointed out that had he not been facing backwards at the time he might well have landed under the rotating blades, thereby claiming record to the shortest Thainship ever and, at the same time, giving way to the youngest Thain in Shire history, as little Faramir was still only 5 years old.

Most were satisfied that he just fell off.

Notwithstanding the conflicting accounts of how the Thain came to abandon his precarious perch, hobbits land light, and Pippin sprang to his feet and joined Merry in chasing the reversing, albeit now driverless, Great Steam Vapour Spindle Activated Vegetation Dissection and Lubrication Apparatus across the party field.

"Pippin!" Merry shouted breathlessly. "You're supposed to stop it before you get off! Remember? They told us that was important!"

Pippin had managed to get ahead, or rather behind, the reversing machine and, flailing his arms wildly like a windmill to clear away stray youngsters from the path of the retreating behemoth, shouted back, "I didn't exactly mean to get off!"

"Well that's good to know!" Merry panted. "But we need to stop it, not show it where to go!"

"P'raps it'll run out of steam?" Pippin suggested, although not too hopefully. Worried by their earlier attempts to get the thing going, he had just banked the fire up as high as possible. "Or maybe it will reach the other side and the fence will stop it."

"Or you'll fall over again, and you'll stop it!" Merry was running beside the engine now, hanging on grimly to the rail by the steps. "Pippin! Get out of the way!"

"I'm trying…" Pippin puffed, "…to get everyone else out of the way! And Merry, I don't think I'll stop it. I think it will just run over me."

"I know!" Merry shouted back. "That's why… Oh never mind," he muttered and, with a supreme effort, hoisted himself up onto the moving machine.

Pippin, turning to see why his cousin had stopped mid-sentence, lost his footing and fell flat on his back. Gasps of horror went up from the crowd, several lasses screamed and Diamond, who had just arrived with Pervinca and Faramir, fainted clean away into her sister-in-law's arms.

To loud cheers and whoops from the crowd, Meriadoc the Magnificent (some historians claim it was at this moment that his epithet was coined) thumped down the clutch with his foot, jerked the gear into the central and neutral position and slammed on the brake.

Pervinca fanned Diamond with her bonnet whilst Faramir, temporarily unrestrained, jumped up and down in excitement shouting, "Do it again Daddy! Jump more Daddy!"

Sam and Frodo-lad, who had abandoned their labours to watch in open-mouthed horror, hurried over to retrieve their almost ex-Thain. But Pippin was already up on his feet and scrambled round to jump back onto the footplate.

"Come on Merry," he called impatiently, "let's get going again. This is a race, remember?"

Sam shrugged and beckoned his eldest son towards the scythes. "Best get on lad. I should know better than to worry about your Uncle Pippin – he always seems to bounce!"

TBC