The Time Pirate by Ted Bell

the barn had changed considerably since the day Nick and Kate had first peered inside it. For one thing, it didn’t smell like dead mice anymore. It smelled of glue and grease and castor oil.
    Ever since he’d first laid eyes on the old Sopwith Camel, Gunner had been like a man possessed. Nick told him what he had in mind for the aeroplane, and he had never seen his old friend so excited or so happy. Clearly, for someone as mechanically minded as Gunner, this project would be a labor of love.
    First, Gunner had lugged his toolbox up from his workshop at the inn. Then he had hung kerosene lanterns on all four walls, so the gloom had completely evaporated. And Gunner could work long into the night. On the second day after commencing their restoration, Gunner had shown upwith a powerful searchlight he’d once removed from the deck of a sinking U-boat in the First World War. He’d mounted the light on top of a barn post and connected it to a gas generator.
    â€œNow I can see what I’m about, lad.” He’d laughed, swiveling the light so that it was aimed directly at the aircraft’s massive black engine. It was completely exposed now, since they’d already removed the aluminum cowling from the nose of the plane. Today, they’d find out if they had a working engine or not. And Nick would do a series of drawings of the plane with colored pencils so they could accurately re-create the paint scheme once all the restoration was complete.
    Most of the early work had been spent on the wooden framework of the fuselage. They’d ripped away all the faded and crumbling fabric covering the aeroplane. Most of it was rotten and shredding anyway. Dampness had gotten to the wood beneath the fabric, of course, and rotted out the uprights and many of the major and minor struts of the frame. It had taken two days just to replace all the trouble spots with brand-new ash, each wooden piece hand-sawn and fitted expertly by Gunner.
    â€œHand over that spool of piano wire, will you, Nick?”
    Nick picked up the heavy spool and gave it to his friend. “Piano wire?”
    â€œYep. All these interior wires holding the frame together are rusted out. Piano wire, that’s what they built ’em with in 1916, and that’s what we’ll use to replace ’em with.”
    â€œNow what?” Nick had asked, after Gunner had spent most of the afternoon replacing all the rusted wire. “What kind of fabric do we cover these bare bones with?”
    â€œAh, there’s the trick, ain’t it, lad? Only one thing good enough for our lovely Camel, Nick, and that’s good old Irishlinen. Expensive, I’ll grant you, but worth every ha-penny. There’s a right pretty little seamstress in town who’s a particularly good . . . friend . . . of mine. My little Marjorie will sell me what we need at a bargain price, I’ll wager.”
    So the days went by, and every day, bit by bit, the old aircraft was gradually restored to its former glory. When Gunner installed the new wicker chair for the pilot in the cockpit, Nick asked, “Where is the safety harness? Wouldn’t the pilot fall out in a barrel roll or a loop?”
    â€œDidn’t have ’em in the Great War,” Gunner replied. “The pilot tied himself in with a bit of rope over his thighs. Worked fine. Things was simpler in those days, boy. You made do, that’s all.”
    New rubber for the wheels and the suspension bands came next. The aluminum fuel tank was removed and the whitish powder of oxidation thoroughly cleaned out. The pump was disassembled, de-gunked with alcohol, cleaned, and reinstalled. New hoses everywhere. New, brightly varnished struts between the upper and lower wings were added, and all of the interior control cables to the rudder, ailerons, and surface controls were inspected and replaced.
    The plywood sides of the cockpit were completely rotted out and replaced with new