Chapter 12 Tom Swift and his Chest of Secrets by Victor Appleton
A RING OF FIRE
Knowing little of the actual working of aeroplanes, Mary did not realize what the stopping of the engine meant. She thought Tom had simply shut it off, as he often did, so the noise would not interfere with their hearing of what was going on below.
“Go on back up, Tom!” cried the girl. “I don’t want to go so close.”
“I’m afraid there’s no help for it,” stated Tom grimly.
“What—what do you mean?”
“I mean the motor’s stopped. Something has gone wrong with it. We’re making a forced landing. Goodness knows what the outcome will be!” But Tom said the last to himself as he saw the forest fire seemingly rushing nearer and nearer.
It looked as if he would crash down in the midst of the burning trees.
“If there was only an open place to land it wouldn’t be so bad!” desperately thought Tom. “I might be able to make it. But to crash down into a lot of trees and bushes, and with those trees and bushes on fire.”
Still he kept up a brave front for Mary’s sake. It was more on her account that Tom was worrying than on his own. He felt that he could take a chance and jump at the last minute, though he carried no parachutes on this plane. But for Mary to leap was out of the question.
“Oh, Tom!” she cried, “what is going to happen?”
For a moment the young inventor did not reply. Then a desperate idea came into his mind. It was a big chance, but the only one, and it must be taken.
Not far away was Lake Carlopa, a large sheet of water on which Tom had tried out many of his marine ideas. If he could reach that he might yet save himself and Mary, and, perchance, even the plane. For though the Hummer was not equipped with pontoons for alighting on water, yet the plunge into that element would be less damaging to her than a crash to the ground.
“And there’ll be a chance for us, too,” thought Tom. “She’ll keep afloat on her wings for a few seconds if she doesn’t go into a nose dive. Yes, I’ll head for the lake.”
Desperately he tried to picture to himself the grounds surrounding the lake. He was trying to decide whether there was a field big enough in which to bring the Hummer to a regular gliding landing. If there was, nothing more would happen than always happened when an aeroplane landing is made.
But, as Tom recalled it, there were only scattered farms about the lake, and none of these was suitable for a landing field. Adjacent to the lake were picnic grounds, but these were covered with scattered trees and buildings.
“The open lake is my only chance,” decided Tom. “But can I reach it? That’s the question.”
He could see, shimmering in the sunlight ahead of him, Lake Carlopa. But he also became aware that his machine was steadily going down. He tried to figure out whether he could gain enough horizontal distance in proportion to his vertical drop to make the lake. And as he looked at the distance separating him from the body of water, it was with a sinking sensation in his heart that he answered himself in the negative.
“It can’t be done!” Tom told himself.
This being the case, he must pick out the next best expedient.
“We’ve got to crash, and soon,” he reasoned. “I’d better pick out a big, soft tree. The upper branches will give a little and bring us up gradually. A tree’s better than the ground with its underbrush.”
After her first spasm of terror Mary had become calm, and was sitting tensely in her seat waiting for Tom to bring her out of the danger.
It was not the first time she and the young inventor had been in desperate plights, and always before this Tom had come out ahead of the game in taking chances with death. Of course there could be one last time, but Mary was not thinking of that.
“It looked as desperate as this on Earthquake Island,” she told herself. “Yet we got off, thanks to Tom.”
All this while the Hummer had been gliding down on a long slant. Mary realized, of course, that the longer and more gradual the slant, or angle, at which the falling aeroplane approached the earth, the better chance it had for making a gentle and safe landing. It is the sudden nose dives, or tail spins, straight to earth that crash the planes and kill the pilots.
Tom was saving his machine. He would let it glide swiftly down for a short distance and then head it up, so it would nose toward the sky. This would slacken its speed and also carry it further along.
But it was evident that he could never cross the wide area of the burning forest and reach Lake Carlopa. That was out of the question. The next best thing, as Tom had decided, was to land in some big tree, the springing branches of which would act as a cushion.
“But I’ve got to pick out a spot where there isn’t any fire,” Tom told himself.
There was, of course, a certain burning area of the forest fire. Equally of course, there was not an even number of square miles ablaze. The fire was irregular in shape, and there were portions, perhaps a mile in extent each way, where the flames had not taken hold. Also, because of the nature of the fuel on which it fed, the fire advanced irregularly. The line of its advance was one that curved in and out, so that there were indentations here and there like the shore line of the sea, with bays of fire and points of woodland as yet unburned.
To pick out one of these places was Tom’s desire, and as the aeroplane glided nearer and nearer to the earth he knew that he must soon make this decision.
“Oh, Tom, what are we going to do?” faltered Mary. The suspense was telling on her. She could not quite fathom Tom’s object.
“We’re going to land in that big pine tree,” he suddenly exclaimed. “Hold your arms over your face, Mary, so you won’t be scratched. Look out now—here we go!”
As Tom spoke he ducked down behind the protection cowl of the cockpit in front of him, having a moment before adjusted the steering lever so as to glide into the top of an immense pine tree which stood in the midst of a clump of other giants of the forest, in a space as yet untouched by fire.
A moment later the Hummer crashed—crashed with a thud, a rending, a crackling, a splintering and tearing that went to Tom’s heart, for the plane was almost like a live creature to him.
Even as the plane crashed, Tom knew that he had made the best landing possible, and that, for the time at least, he and Mary were safe.
As Tom had anticipated, the spreading branches of the great pine tree acted as an immense cushion, and as the Hummer was a comparatively small plane, she was buoyed up. That is, at least long enough to take up the first shock.
In a few seconds Tom realized that he and Mary must make a hasty exit from the plane, for it might slip from its position, and portions of it drop on them as they slid from their seats.
The poor Hummer was badly broken. A plane cannot crash down into a tree and not have something like that happen. They are not built for that sort of thing. Tom realized this.
“Quick, Mary!” he called. “Unstrap yourself and I’ll help you climb out and down. I don’t know how long this plane will stay here.”
Mary had recovered her nerve after the first shock of the crash and as soon as she realized that neither of them was hurt beyond more than bruises and a shaking up.
“I can get out myself,” she announced, as she loosed the strap that held her to the cockpit seat. “And I can climb down out of the tree, Tom. I’m glad I wore leather knickerbockers to-day.”
“So am I,” murmured the young inventor.
He had loosed himself in his seat and turned now to help Mary, but of this there was little need, since she was capable of acting for herself.
Several of the branches of the great pine had been broken off, and the jagged ends were sticking through the frail wings and the almost as frail fuselage of the plane. These branches thus held it in place for a time, but it might slip down at any moment.
“How are you making it, Mary?” asked Tom, as he climbed out on a branch.
“I’m all right,” she said. “This is fun—just climbing down out of a tree,” and her laugh showed that her nerves were in good shape, for which Tom was glad. But then, Mary Nestor never was the sort of girl to go off in a faint. She was a brave girl, and that was why Tom liked her so much.
Together the two made their way down out of the pine tree, leaving the plane impaled on the branches over their heads.
“Poor Hummer!” murmured Tom, with more feeling than he cared to show.
“Yes, and poor us, too, perhaps, Tom!” exclaimed Mary.
“Why, we’re all right!” he exclaimed, as they reached the ground. “Hardly scratched.”
“Yes; but look! The fire! It’s all around us!”
Then Tom realized the peril he had all but forgotten—the peril of flames. As Mary spoke, the fire, with a sudden burst, leaped a gap hitherto open and the young people were in the midst of a raging conflagration—blazing trees and bushes all about them!