Chapter 8 Tom Swift and His Sky Train by Victor Appleton
TO THE RESCUE
Tom Swift fairly jumped to the telephone and, a moment later, was talking to Lacter in the motor compartment.
“Head for the landing field, Lacter!” Tom called. “There’s been an accident—rear glider cut loose and is falling—hope they make a safe landing. Something queer—Daniel used a ’chute and jumped. Go back to the field and I’ll run over in a car and see what’s left of my glider,” Tom concluded grimly.
“And the other two men in her!” added Ned in a low voice.
“Yes,” agreed Tom. “But one is pretty sure to be safe, at any rate.”
“You mean Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“How did it come he had a ’chute?” asked Ned. “Did everybody have one?”
“No,” Tom stated, “and perhaps I did wrong in not equipping the gliders with a ’chute for each man. We have some in here, of course,” he went on, indicating the racks where the parachutes, like life preservers on a vessel, were kept in readiness for instant use.
“But I figured,” resumed the young inventor, “that all the men in the gliders were experienced fliers and could look after themselves. Besides, a glider going down isn’t like a plane crashing.”
“No,” assented Ned, “there’s no motor to land on a fellow. But it’s queer Daniel had the foresight to bring a ’chute along.”
“It is queer,” Tom admitted. “That’s one of the things I’ve got to look into—if there’s anything left to look at,” he added as he motioned toward where the glider had gone down. It was just passing out of sight behind a hill, the last look had of it by the occupants of the Eagle.
“They seem to have it in control,” remarked Ned, hopefully.
“Yes, Blanchard and Lee are both good men,” Tom added. “They may land without much damage being done. On the other hand——” he shrugged his shoulders to indicate that the rest was fate.
“Can you tell me what happened?” asked Mr. Damon who, now that he was assured of his own safety, was calmer. “Bless my bathtub, but I’m all up in the air!”
“Up in the air is right!” spoke Ned with a grim chuckle.
“We’ll land soon,” Tom said, for the Eagle, pulling after her the other four gliders, was making fast time back to the testing field. “As for what happened, I wish I knew. All I do know is that the rear glider either broke loose or was cut off.”
“Cut off!” cried Ned.
“Yes,” Tom said. “It may be that something went wrong with the signal apparatus, or the magnetic switch might have short-circuited, and let the tail car go down. At any rate it was cut off.”
“The coupling may have broken,” suggested Ned. “It did the other time, you remember.”
“Yes,” admitted the young inventor. “That’s possible. But I thought I had the new coupler designed strong enough to stand a much bigger strain than has been put to it on this trip. No, I’m afraid something is wrong!”
Tom’s voice was gloomy and Ned shared his friend’s worry. The success of the sky train meant a big thing to the Swift concern. The company was heavily in debt now because of making the experimental units, and now that Mr. Damon’s bank had made a large loan, some of which had already been spent, it meant a further dip into the “red” on the ledgers, if the coupling patent were a failure.
“Maybe things will not be so bad when you get to where that glider went down,” suggested Mr. Damon, with an attempt to cheer up his young friends. “They may have made a perfect landing, Tom.”
“Oh, it isn’t so much the landing I’m worrying about,” Tom said. “I think Blanchard and Lee will be able to put the glider down all right if nothing more than the coupling is broken. But it’s the fact that the glider cut off without any warning, without me giving the signal and pulling the switch from here, that worries me. It shows that something is wrong in my calculations.”
“I didn’t know Daniel was such an air expert that he had the foresight to take a ’chute up with him,” Ned remarked.
“Nor I,” agreed Tom. “He knows a lot about air craft and he’s one of the best designers I ever had. But I didn’t know he had any flying experience.”
“You don’t call riding in a glider flying experience, do you?” asked Ned.
“Certainly! Lots of the best pilots have gained their preliminary knowledge and air-mindedness by starting in gliders.”
“I suppose,” went on Ned, as the Eagle flew on toward her home “nest” with the string of gliders behind her, “I suppose that you figure prospective passengers will be less afraid of getting into a machine without a roaring motor than in a regular plane like this.”
“Yes, I’m counting somewhat on that,” admitted Tom. “But I think the most valuable feature of my sky train is in the ability to drop off what, in effect, are separate unit cars, or gliders, and pick up others without stopping the train itself in its cross-country run.”
“Do you mean you are going to fly the Eagle from here to San Francisco without stopping for refueling?” asked Ned.
“That’s what I plan to do,” Tom stated. “I think that will be a big advertisement. Think of making the run from New York to ’Frisco without a stop. That’s what the passengers in the Eagle will be able to do. Of course those who want to make intermediate stops will take a glider, and passengers we pick up on the way out will do likewise. But this may all go flooey, Ned, if I find out my coupling jigger is in the soup.”
“It works all right with these other gliders,” stated Ned. “Or it has so far.”
“Yes, I’m going to give the releasing mechanism a test right away,” Tom went on. “But no chain is stronger than the weakest link. And if something was wrong with the coupling of that rear glider, it may be wrong with all the others,” and he waved his hand toward the string of gliders back of the Eagle. “However we’ll know pretty soon,” he said with something like a sigh.
They were now over the landing field again, close to the big shops, and Tom signalled to the plane pilots that he was going to begin to release one glider after another. When the last one, attached directly to the Eagle, was cut off, the big plane would go down.
“Stand by to cut loose!” Tom called to the pilot of glider No. 4, counting the one that had fallen as No. 5.
“All in order!” answered Miskon, the pilot of No. 4.
“Here you go!” cried Tom over the telephone wire and he pulled the switch controlling the magnetic coupler. An instant later the glider went gracefully down in perfect control, making a fine landing.
“One to the good!” remarked Tom. “I’ll let the next glider cut herself loose and see how that works.” By that Tom meant he would let the pilot in No. 3 operate the releasing mechanism, which, as has been said, was dual, though operated separately from either location.
“Stand by to cut off!” Tom called to his man.
“Right!” came the crisp response.
There was the flash of a signal light in the cabin of the Eagle, showing that another glider had been released. No. 3 went down in perfect control.
“Well, that’s better,” Tom said.
In quick succession gliders 2 and 1 went back to earth and then the Eagle herself settled to the field.
“And now to see what happened to Blanchard, Lee and Daniel!” cried Tom as he jumped from the cabin, followed by Ned and Mr. Damon. “Get out my electric runabout, Koku!” Tom called to his giant helper who, with others, had hurried out to greet the passengers in the Eagle.
A few minutes later Tom and Ned, in one of the fastest cars that ever traveled a road, were hurrying toward the scene of the glider’s fall, to the rescue of those who had been in the craft.
What would they find when they got there?