TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
or
The Naval Terror of the Seas
BY
VICTOR APPLETON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I TOM IS PUZZLED
II A FIRE ALARM
III A DESPERATE BATTLE
IV SUSPICIONS
V A QUEER STRANGER
VI THE AERIAL WARSHIP
VII WARNINGS
VIII A SUSPECTED PLOT
IX THE RECOIL CHECK
X THE NEW MEN
XI A DAY OFF
XII A NIGHT ALARM
XIII THE CAPTURE
XIV THE FIRST FLIGHT
XV IN DANGER
XVI TOM IS WORRIED
XVII AN OCEAN FLIGHT
XVIII IN A STORM
XIX QUEER HAPPENINGS
XX THE STOWAWAYS
XXI PRISONERS
XXII APPREHENSIONS
XXIII ACROSS THE SEA
XXIV THE LIGHTNING BOLT
XXV FREEDOM
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
CHAPTER I
TOM IS PUZZLED
"What's the matter, Tom? You look rather blue!"
"Blue! Say, Ned, I'd turn red, green, yellow, or any other color of the
rainbow, if I thought it would help matters any."
"Whew!"
Ned Newton, the chum and companion of Tom Swift, gave vent to a whistle
of surprise, as he gazed at the young fellow sitting opposite him, near
a bench covered with strange-looking tools and machinery, while
blueprints and drawings were scattered about.
Ranged on the sides of the room were models of many queer craft, most
of them flying machines of one sort or another, while through the open
door that led into a large shed could be seen the outlines of a speedy
monoplane.
"As bad as that, eh, Tom?" went on Ned. "I thought something was up
when I first came in, but, if you'll excuse a second mention of the
color scheme, I should say it was blue--decidedly blue. You look as
though you had lost your last friend, and I want to assure you that if
you do feel that way, it's dead wrong. There's myself, for one, and
I'm sure Mr. Damon--"
"Bless my gasoline tank!" exclaimed Tom, with a laugh, in imitation of
the gentleman Ned Newton had mentioned, "I know that! I'm not worrying
over the loss of any friends."
"And there are Eradicate, and Koku, the giant, just to mention a couple
of others," went on Ned, with a smile.
"That's enough!" exclaimed Tom. "It isn't that, I tell you."
"Well, what is it then? Here I go and get a half-holiday off from the
bank, and just at the busiest time, too, to come and see you, and I
find you in a brown study, looking as blue as indigo, and maybe you're
all yellow inside from a bilious attack, for all I know."
"Quite a combination of colors," admitted Tom. "But it isn't what you
think. It's just that I'm puzzled, Ned."
"Puzzled?" and Ned raised his eyebrows to indicate how surprised he was
that anything should puzzle his friend.
"Yes, genuinely puzzled."
"Has anything gone wrong?" Ned asked. "No one is trying to take any of
your pet inventions away from you, is there?"
"No, not exactly that, though it is about one of my inventions I am
puzzled. I guess I haven't shown you my very latest; have I, Ned?"
"Well, I don't know, Tom. Time was when I could keep track of you and
your inventions, but that was in your early days, when you started with
a motorcycle and were glad enough to have a motorboat. But, since
you've taken to aerial navigation and submarine work, not to mention
one or two other lines of activity, I give up. I don't know where to
look next, Tom, for something new."
"Well, this isn't so very new," went on the young inventor, for Tom
Swift had designed and patented many new machines of the air, earth and
water. "I'm just trying to work out some new problems in aerial
navigation, Ned," he went on.
"I thought there weren't any more," spoke Ned, soberly enough.
"Come, now, none of that!" exclaimed Tom, with a laugh. "Why, the
surface of aerial navigation has only been scratched. The science is
far from being understood, or even made safe, not to say perfected, as
water and land travel have been. There's lots of chance yet."
"And you're working on something new?" asked Ned, as he looked around
the shop where he and Tom were sitting. As the young bank employee had
said, he had come away from the institution that afternoon to have a
little holiday with his chum, but Tom, seated in the midst of his
inventions, seemed little inclined to jollity.
Through the open windows came the hum of distant machinery, for Tom
Swift and his father were the heads of a company founded to manufacture
and market their many inventions, and about their home were grouped
several buildings. From a small plant the business had grown to be a
great tree, under the direction of Tom and his father.
"Yes, I'm working on something new," admitted Tom, after a moment of
silence.
"And, Ned," he went on, "there's no reason why you shouldn't see it.
I've been keeping it a bit secret, until I had it a little further
advanced, but I've got to a point now where I'm stuck, and perhaps it
will do me good to talk to someone about it."
"Not to talk to me, though, I'm afraid. What I don't know about
machinery, Tom, would fill a great many books. I don't see how I can
help you," and Ned laughed.
"Well, perhaps you can, just the same, though you may not know a lot of
technical things about machines. It sometimes helps me just to tell my
troubles to a disinterested person, and hear him ask questions. I've
got dad half distracted trying to solve the problem, so I've had to let
up on him for a while. Come on out and see what you make of it."
"Sure, Tom, anything to oblige. If you want me to sit in front of your
photo-telephone, and have my picture taken, I'm agreeable, even if you
shoot off a flashlight at my ear. Or, if you want me to see how long I
can stay under water without breathing I'll try that, too, provided you
don't leave me under too long, lead the way--I'm agreeable as far as
I'm able, old man."
"Oh, it isn't anything like that," Tom answered with a laugh. "I might
as well give you a few hints, so you'll know what I'm driving at. Then
I'll take you out and show it to you."
"What is it--air, earth or water?" asked Ned Newton, for he knew his
chum's activities led along all three lines.
"This happens to be air."
"A new balloon?"
"Something like that. I call it my aerial warship, though."
"Aerial warship, Tom! That sounds rather dangerous!"
"It will be dangerous, too, if I can get it to work. That's what it's
intended for."
"But a warship of the air!" cried Ned. "You can't mean it. A warship
carries guns, mortars, bombs, and--"
"Yes, I know," interrupted Tom, "and I appreciate all that when I
called my newest craft an aerial warship."
"But," objected Ned, "an aircraft that will carry big guns will be so
large that--"
"Oh, mine is large enough," Tom broke in.
"Then it's finished!" cried Ned eagerly, for he was much interested in
his chum's inventions.
"Well, not exactly," Tom said. "But what I was going to tell you was
that all guns are not necessarily large. You can get big results with
small guns and projectiles now, for high-powered explosives come in
small packages. So it isn't altogether a question of carrying a certain
amount of weight. Of course, an aerial warship will have to be big, for
it will have to carry extra machinery to give it extra speed, and it
will have to carry a certain armament, and a large crew will be needed.
So, as I said, it will need to be large. But that problem isn't
worrying me."
"Well, what is it, then?" asked Ned.
"It's the recoil," said Tom, with a gesture of despair.
"The recoil?" questioned Ned, wonderingly.
"Yes, from the guns, you know. I haven't been able to overcome that,
and, until I do, I'm afraid my latest invention will be a failure."
Ned shook his head.
"I'm afraid I can't help you any," he said. "The only thing I know
about recoils is connected with an old shotgun my father used to own.
"I took that once, when he didn't know it," Ned proceeded. "It was
pretty heavily loaded, for the crows had been having fun in our
cornfield, and dad had been shooting at them. This time I thought I'd
take a chance.
"Well, I fired the gun. But it must have had a double charge in it and
been rusted at that. All I know is that after I pulled the trigger I
thought the end of the world had come. I heard a clap of thunder, and
then I went flying over backward into a blackberry patch."
"That was the recoil," said Tom.
"The what?" asked Ned.
"The recoil. The recoil of the gun knocked you over."
"Oh, yes," observed Ned, rubbing his shoulder in a reflective sort of
way. "I always thought it was something like that. But, at the time I
put it down to an explosion, and let it go at that."
"No, it wasn't an explosion, properly speaking," said Tom. "You see,
when powder explodes, in a gun, or otherwise, its force is exerted in
all directions, up, down and every way."
"This went mostly backward--in my direction," said Ned ruefully.
"You only thought so," returned Tom. "Most of the power went out in
front, to force out the shot. Part of it, of course, was exerted on the
barrel of the gun--that was sideways--but the strength of the steel
held it in. And part of the force went backward against your shoulder.
That part was the recoil, and it is the recoil of the guns I figure on
putting aboard my aerial warship that is giving me such trouble."
"Is that what makes you look so blue?" asked Ned.
"That's it. I can't seem to find a way by which to take up the recoil,
and the force of it, from all the guns I want to carry, will just about
tear my ship to pieces, I figure."
"Then you haven't actually tried it out yet?" asked Ned.
"Not the guns, no. I have the warship of the air nearly done, but I've
worked out on paper the problem of the guns far enough so that I know
I'm up against it. It can't be done, and an aerial warship without guns
wouldn't be worth much, I'm afraid."
"I suppose not," agreed Ned. "And is it only the recoil that is
bothering you?"
"Mostly. But come, take a look at my latest pet," and Tom arose to lead
the way to another shed, a large one in the distance, toward which he
waved his hand to indicate to his chum that there was housed the
wonderful invention.
The two chums crossed the yard, threading their way through the various
buildings, until they stood in front of the structure to which Tom had
called attention.
"It's in here," he said. "I don't mind admitting that I'm quite proud
of it, Ned; that is, proud as far as I've gone. But the gun business
sure has me worried. I'm going to talk it off on you. Hello!" cried
Tom suddenly, as he put a key in the complicated lock on the door,
"someone has been in here. I wonder who it is?"
Ned was a little startled at the look on Tom's face and the sound of
alarm in his chum's voice.