Chapter 23 Tom Swift and His Sky Train by Victor Appleton
THE RACE
Though the Eagle roared and throbbed her way aloft, pulling after her five loaded gliders, in much the same fashion as had marked the previous experimental flights, yet to Tom Swift, and many others, this trip was vastly different. It was as much different as a practice football game differs from the ’varsity clash between two big colleges. So much depended on the successful outcome of the trip of Tom Swift’s sky train to the coast.
But it was without a sign of the anxiety within him that the young inventor, after closing the cabin door and giving the signal to start, walked over to where Ned stood, with Mr. Jackson, regarding the gauges and other gadgets on the instrument board, and said:
“Well, we’re headed there at last.”
“For the World Exposition, you mean?” inquired Ned. “Yes, Tom, I never thought I’d see this day, after we had so many failures with the couplers.”
“I was a bit discouraged myself at times,” Tom remarked. “Especially after so many things happened. But now that Daniel, or, rather, Davis, has given up his ill-directed activities and I know Willam’s little game, I fancy we shall have clear sailing—barring, of course, the chances for accidents.”
“And you hope to win that twenty-five thousand dollar prize, I suppose, Tom?” asked Ned.
“I sure do!”
“Well,” remarked the financial manager, dryly, “all I can say is that we’ll need the money. But there’s one element of chance you seem to have overlooked, Tom.”
“What’s that?”
“The possibility that the Acton people may beat you with their Dirigible Flyer. They’re also trying for the prize.”
“I know, but I think I can beat them.”
“You could if you would give up your plan to hitch gliders on at Chicago and Denver,” and Ned spoke seriously. “It’s all right for you to drop the two gliders over those cities, Tom, as you planned. But to pick up gliders may mean a delay, and too much of a delay might lose you the prize. Why won’t you be satisfied just to drop the two gliders? Don’t pick any up.”
This had been a mooted point between Tom and Ned for some days. The prize rules for a race between the two travelers in cloudland called for the dropping of two or more gliders, balloon cars or small dirigible units, as the contestants elected, and according to the construction of the particular sky train. Nothing was said about picking up other gliders, or units, and it was not made a condition of the contest. Consequently Tom could have omitted this. He knew the Acton people were not going to do it. In fact, they were not equipped to.
“No, Ned,” spoke Tom, with a gesture of finality. “I’m going to pick up my gliders as I said I would. I don’t care whether the Acton people do or not. And it won’t delay us any. I’ll keep the Eagle flying along. It will be up to the pilots of the lifting planes to hook their gliders on.”
“Well, old man, it’s your show, not mine,” Ned remarked. “But we sure will need that twenty-five thousand dollars!”
“And we’ll get it!” cried Tom. “It’s a matter of principle with me, Ned. All along I have said I was going to make a sky train as nearly like a land train as was possible. One of the features is the ability of my sky train to drop gliders and pick up others, as a land train drops off cars and couples on others. If I left out half of what I set out to do I wouldn’t be playing fair with myself or the public.”
“Well, Tom, I guess you’ll have to go through with it then,” said his chum. “We’ll hope for the best.”
The sky train was now up about eight thousand feet and roaring along at a fast clip. It could go higher, and it could proceed lower, according to the weather conditions the pilots in the Eagle encountered. Tom had secured advance reports of the weather prevailing across the United States, and, save for a threat of possible storms over the Rockies, all were favorable.
After seeing that Mr. Damon and his other guests were comfortable in their quarters aboard the Eagle, Tom got into telephone communication with the pilots of the following gliders and learned that in each unit everything was satisfactory. He gave orders that the coupling mechanism was to be inspected frequently to catch any possible impending breaks or other defects.
As the flight to Chicago would take only a few hours, when the first glider would be dropped off, there were no arrangements in that “car” for sleeping accommodations. A lunch was provided, however.
The Eagle had several sleeping berths and contained a well-fitted kitchen, with sufficient food for some time. Though Tom expected to make the trip to San Francisco in about fifteen hours, he realized there might be delays, on account of storms, and that his passengers would have to sleep and eat. So all this was provided for. The same thing was done in the gliders that would make the entire trip—berths and food were aboard them.
“Well, we’re hitting it up,” Tom remarked as he looked at a speed gauge which registered close to two hundred miles per hour.
“Sure are flying,” agreed Ned.
“Bless my feather pillows, Tom!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “I hope nothing happens at this terrific speed.”
“The same to you!” Tom answered with a smile. “But don’t worry. You have gone faster than this with me before, Mr. Damon, and you didn’t mind it. In fact if you hadn’t looked at the gauge you wouldn’t know you were going as fast as you have often traveled in a railroad train, would you?”
“No, I guess I wouldn’t,” admitted the odd man. High up in the air as they were, the passengers could really get no adequate idea of their terrific speed. And the only motion noticeable was a slight dip or rise, now and then, and the distant sound of throbbing and roaring from the powerful motors of the Eagle. In the big airplane cabin, and in the cabins of the big gliders, the passengers were as comfortable as in a Pullman car.
Several newspaper men were in the Eagle, representatives of the big news-gathering associations, and Tom permitted them to wireless back a running story of the trip, to give them something to write about. When they had been up a few hours, Tom ordered luncheon served in the airplane as well as in the gliders.
“And I never heard a sweeter word than that,” remarked Ned as he went to a small table, “I sure am hungry!”
The start had been made about 4 o’clock in the morning, when it was hardly light, in fact, for Tom wanted to get to San Francisco before dark, which he could easily do if he made the distance in about fifteen hours as he calculated. It doesn’t get dark as early on the Pacific coast as it does on the Atlantic, due, of course, to the apparent western course of the sun.
It was not long after lunch that the telephone indicator showed the pilots in the Eagle wished to communicate with Tom. He picked up the instrument and heard Turtan say:
“Chicago is just ahead, Mr. Swift!”
“Good! We’re half an hour ahead of our schedule. Well, cross your fingers for luck, old man. Here comes our first test!” Tom referred to the dropping and picking up of a glider. Then he telephoned back to the pilot of the tail “car,” advising him that Chicago was in sight and suggesting that he stand by for orders.
There was a little thrill of excitement aboard the sky train when it became known that the first attempt of its kind (as far as the finished train was concerned), was about to be made. Tom was not a little anxious as they came over the flying field and saw the plane and waiting glider down below. He might have slackened the speed of the Eagle for this trial, but he would not.
“If the sky train is going to be any good at all,” he decided, “it must not be favored. We’ll drop the glider and pick one up at full speed!” That was like Tom Swift.
He wirelessed to the waiting plane below:
“Stand by to come up!”
“Right!” the pilot answered.
A moment later the tail glider was cut off, and with a roar the motors of the waiting plane below took her up with the glider of passengers at her tail. The Eagle soared on with the four units of her train. Down below there was a wild demonstration when it was seen how successful the first part of the experiment had been. But of course Tom and his friends could not hear this. They were too high up.
Nearer and nearer came the auxiliary plane and glider. Now it was on a level with the Eagle and her gliders—now above, and, a moment later, ahead. Those small planes surely were speedy!
Now began that careful jockeying necessary to hitch the new No. 5 glider to No. 4. Both pilots were on their mettle. Anxiously Tom Swift watched from the observation window in the cabin roof. He saw the small plane synchronize her speed until it was exactly the same as that of the Eagle. Then it dipped a little to bring the glider into position. There was a moment of hesitation—a slight bump and jar, felt through the entire sky train. Then Ned cried:
“There she goes!”
Like a sparrow darting off the back of a hawk the auxiliary plane left her place above the Eagle and flew down to the ground.
“The glider is coupled, ladies and gentlemen,” Tom announced to his guests in the cabin.
“And at nearly two hundred miles an hour speed!” exclaimed one of the newspaper men. “Boy, this is some story!” And he scribbled a message to his paper.
On speeded Tom Swift’s sky train. The first of the two attempts to drop off and take on a “car” had been successful. The next trial would be over Denver, some hours away.
Carefully watching every indicating instrument and noting the consumption of gas and oil from the gauges in the cabin, Tom Swift left nothing out of his calculations that would make for success. He had enough fuel aboard for the entire flight, and in the glider next to the Eagle was a big reserve tank of gasoline and oil.
“Well, if this keeps up,” Ned remarked, “we’ll soon hit Denver, and after we take on our glider there there’ll be nothing between us and Frisco but success.”
“Let’s hope so,” murmured Tom.
A little later Lacter, in the Eagle, reported:
“Approaching Denver, Mr. Swift!”
“Good! Watch everything now!”
The tail glider, which had been picked up at Chicago, was now to be released and another picked up at the Denver airport. Later on Tom planned to circle his sky train several times around a flying field, so that, if necessary, all the gliders towed by the Eagle could be transposed, as a switching freight train picks up and takes on cars, not only at its rear end but at front and in the middle. But that was something for the future.
“Cut off!” cried Tom, manipulating the double dual magnetic switch. The pilot in the tail glider did the same. That “car” went down as lightly as a feather. Up came the other glider, and in less time than the coupling had been made before, was hooked on to the rear of the sky train. Never slackening speed, on flew the Eagle.
“Hurray!” cried the enthusiastic Ned. “And now for the last lap of the race! Tom, you’re going to win! The Acton people aren’t in it for a minute!”
Tom did not answer. He had risen from his seat near the instrument board and was looking back, and off to the left at some dark speck in the sky.
“What is it?” asked Ned, catching the direction of his chum’s gaze.
“I’m not sure,” Tom replied, quietly, “but I think it’s our rival. I heard they were going to start today.”
“You mean the Acton concern?”
“Yes. That may be merely another big airplane sent out to trail us by some newspaper, or it may be a dirigible. But I think it’s the Acton outfit. Hand me the glasses, Ned.”
Focusing these to his eyes, Tom Swift took a long observation of the speck in the sky. It was momentarily growing larger. Then, suddenly, Tom handed the glasses to Ned, saying:
“It’s the Dirigible Flyer all right. We’re going to have a race for that prize!”
Quickly the word was passed around the cabin of the Eagle.
“A race! A race!”
On roared the sky train, and after it came the big bulk of the Acton dirigible, with several smaller balloon-like units in her wake.