CHAPTER I_Tom Slade on a Transport

Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: TOM HOBBLED ALONG, HOLDING THE RAIL.

Frontispiece--(Page 131)]

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TOM SLADE ON A TRANSPORT

By Percy K. Fitzhugh

Author of TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT, TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP,

TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER, TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS

Illustrated by Thomas Clarity

Published With the Approval of the Boy Scouts of America

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

Made in the United States of America

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Tom Meets One Friend and Is Reminded of Another 1

II. He Does a Good Turn and Makes a Discovery 9

III. He Scents Danger and Receives a Letter 19

IV. He Gets a Job and Meets "Frenchy" 29

V. He Makes a Discovery and Receives a Shock 39

VI. He Hears About Alsace and Receives a Present 46

VII. He Becomes Very Proud, and Also Very Much Frightened 55

VIII. He Hears Some News and Is Confidential with Frenchy 61

IX. He Sees a Strange Light and Goes on Tiptoe 68

X. He Goes Below and Gropes in the Dark 77

XI. He Makes a Discovery and Is Greatly Agitated 83

XII. He Is Frightened and Very Thoughtful 86

XIII. He Ponders and Decides Between Two Near Relations 92

XIV. He is Arrested and Put in the Guardhouse 97

XV. He Does Most of the Talking and Takes All the Blame 103

XVI. He Sees a Little and Hears Much 107

XVII. He Awaits the Worst and Receives a Surprise 115

XVIII. He Talks With Mr. Conne and Sees the Boys

Start for the Front 121

XIX. He Is Cast Away and Is in Great Peril 129

XX. He Is Taken Aboard the "Tin Fish" and Questioned 135

XXI. He Is Made a Prisoner and Makes a New Friend 144

XXII. He Learns Where He Is Going and Finds a Ray of Hope 151

XXIII. He Makes a High Resolve and Loses a Favorite Word 154

XXIV. He Goes to the Civilian Camp and Doesn't Like It 161

XXV. He Visits the Old Pump and Receives a Shock 169

XXVI. He Has an Idea Which Suggests Another 176

XXVII. He Plans a Desperate Game and Does a Good Job 185

XXVIII. He Disappears--for the Time Being 192

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TOM SLADE ON A TRANSPORT

CHAPTER I

TOM MEETS ONE FRIEND AND IS REMINDED OF ANOTHER

As Tom Slade went through Terrace Avenue on his way to the Temple Camp

office, where he was employed, he paused beside a truck backed up

against the curb in front of a certain vacant store. Upon it was a big

table and wrestling with the table was Pete Connigan, the truckman--the

very same Pete Connigan at whom Tom used to throw rocks and whom he had

called a "mick." It reminded him of old times to see Pete.

The vacant store, too, aroused dubious memories, for there he had stolen

many an apple in the days when Adolf Schmitt had his "cash grocery" on

the premises, and used to stand in the doorway with his white apron on,

shaking his fist as Tom scurried down the street and calling, "I'll

_strafe_ you, you young loafer!"

Tom had wondered what _strafing_ was, until long afterward he heard

that poor Belgium was being _strafed_; and then he knew.

"Wal, ef 'tain't Tommy Slade!" said Pete, with a cordial grin of

surprise. "I ain't seen ye in two year! Ye've growed ter be a big,

strappin' lad, ain't ye?"

"Hello, Pete," said Tom, shaking the Irishman's brawny hand. "Glad to

see you. I've been away working on a ship for quite a while. That's one

reason you haven't seen me."

"Be gorry, the town's gittin' big, an' that's another reason. The last

time I seen ye, ye wuz wid that Sweet Cap'ral lad, an' I knocked yer two

sassy heads tergither for yez. Remember that?"

"Yes," laughed Tom, "and then I started running down the street and

hollered, 'Throw a brick, you Irish mick!'?"

"Ye did," vociferated Pete, "an' wid me afther ye."

"You didn't catch me, though," laughed Tom.

"Wal, I got ye now," said Pete, grabbing him good-naturedly by the

collar. And they sat down on the back of the truck to talk for a few

moments.

"I'm glad I came this way," said Tom. "I usually go down Main Street,

but I've been away from Bridgeboro so long, I thought I'd kinder stroll

through this way to see how the town looked. I'm not in any particular

hurry," he added. "I don't have to get to work till nine. I was going to

walk around through Terrace Court."

"Ben away on a ship, hev ye?" questioned Pete, and Tom told him the

whole story of how he had given up the career of a hoodlum to join the

Scouts, of the founding of Temple Camp by Mr. John Temple, of the

summers spent there, of how he had later gotten a job on a steamer

carrying supplies to the allies; how he had helped to apprehend a spy,

how the ship had been torpedoed, how he had been rescued after two days

spent in an open boat, of his roundabout journey back to Bridgeboro, and

the taking up again of his prosaic duties in the local office of Temple

Camp.

The truckman, his case-spike hanging from his neck, listened with

generous interest to Tom's simple, unboastful account of all that had

happened to him.

"There were two people on that ship I got to be special friends with,"

he concluded. "One was a Secret Service man named Conne; he promised to

help me get a job in some kind of war service till I'm old enough to

enlist next spring. The other was a feller about my own age named

Archer. He was a steward's boy. I guess they both got drowned, likely.

Most all the boats got upset while they were launching them. I hope that

German spy got drowned."

"Wuz he a German citizen?" Pete asked.

"Sure, he was! You don't suppose an American citizen would be a spy for

Germany, do you?"

"Be gorry, thar's a lot uv German Amiricans, 'n' I wouldn' trust 'em,"

said Pete.

"Well, there's some Irish people here that hate England, so they're

against the United States too," said Tom.

"Ye call me a thraiter, do ye!" roared Pete.

"I didn't call you anything," Tom said, laughing and dodging the

Irishman's uplifted hand; "but I say a person is American or else he

isn't. It don't make any difference where he was born. If he's an

American citizen and he helps Germany, then he's worse than a spy--he's

a traitor and he ought to get shot."

"Be gorry, you said sumthin'!"

"He's worse than anything else in the world," said Tom. "He's worse

than--than a murderer!"

Pete slapped him on the shoulder. "Bully fer you!" said he. "Fwhativer

became uv yer fayther, lad?" he questioned after a moment.

"He died," said Tom simply. "It was after we got put out of Barrel Alley

and after I got to be a scout. Mr. Ellsworth said maybe it was

better--sort of----"

Pete nodded.

"An' yer bruther?"

"Oh, he went away long before that--even before my mother died. He went

to work on a ranch out West somewhere--Arizona, I think."

"'N' ye niver heard anny more uv him?"

"No--I wrote him a letter when my mother died, but I never got any

answer. Maybe I sent it to the wrong place. Did you ever hear of a place

called O'Brien's Junction out there?"

"It's a good name, I'll say that," said Pete.

"Everybody used to say he'd make money some day. Maybe he's rich now,

hey?"

"I remimber all uv yez when yez used fer ter worrk fer Schmitt, here,"

said Pete.

"It reminded me of that when I came along."

"Yer fayther, he used fer ter drive th' wagon fer 'im. Big Bill 'n'

Little Bill, we used fer ter call him 'n' yer bruther. Yer fayther wuzn'

fond uv worrk, I guess."

"He used to get cramps," said Tom simply.

"He used fer ter lick yez, I'm thinkin'."

"Maybe we deserved to get licked," said Tom. "Anyway _I_ did."

"Yer right, ye did," agreed Pete.

"My brother was better than I was. It made me mad when I saw him get

licked. I could feel it way down in my fingers, kind of--the madness.

That's why he went to live at Schmitt's after my father got so he

couldn't work much. They always had lots to eat at Schmitt's. I didn't

ever work there myself," he added with his customary blunt honesty,

"because I was a hoodlum."

"Wal, I see ye've growed up ter be a foine lad, jist the same," said

Pete consolingly, "'n' mebbe the lad as kin feel the tingles ter see's

bruther git licked unfair is as good as that same bruther, whativer!"

Tom said nothing, but gazed up at the windows of the apartment above the

store where the Schmitts had lived. How he had once envied Bill his

place in that home of good cheer and abundance! He remembered the

sauerkraut and the sausages which Bill had told him of, and he had not

believed Bill's extravagant declaration that "at Schmitt's you could

have all you want to eat." To poor Tom, living with his wretched father

in the two-room tenement in Barrel Alley, with nothing to eat at all,

these accounts of the Schmitt household had seemed like a tale from the

Arabian Nights. Once his father had sent him there to get fifty cents

from thrifty and industrious Bill, and Tom remembered the shiny oilcloth

on the kitchen floor, the snowy white fluted paper on the shelves, the

stiff, spotless apron on the buxom form of Mrs. Schmitt, whom Mr.

Schmitt had called "Mooder."

Tom Slade, of Barrel Alley, had revenged himself on Bill and all the

rest of this by stealing apples from the front of the store and calling,

"Dirty Dutchman"--a singularly inappropriate epithet--at Mr. Schmitt.

But he realized now that Mr. Schmitt had been a kind and hospitable man,

a much better husband and father than poor Bill Slade, senior, had ever

been, and an extremely good friend to lucky Bill, junior, who had lived

so near to Heaven, in that immaculate home, as to have all the

sauerkraut and sausage and potato salad and rye bread and Swiss cheese

and coffee cake that he could possibly manage--and more besides.