AMAZING NEWS
Tom Swift drove the _Winged Arrow_ to a high altitude when she left
Lake Carlopa on her first long voyage. It was a windy day, but
pleasant. The weather indications were favorable for the journey,
but the report from out at sea was that a storm had shaken up the
shipping a good deal.
“We have that matter of balance and safety when taking to the water
to settle, whatever else we may do,” the inventor said to Ned Newton,
who was again his companion. “The hollow sheath of the boat has
proved a good thing while we are in the air; but I should hate to
learn that I had planned something that turned out to be no good for
the object I had in mind, even if it was useful in other ways.”
Besides the two chums aboard the flying boat there were eight in the
crew and a young man named Kingston who was a wireless operator. The
_Winged Arrow_ was supplied with the very latest instruments for
wireless and radiophone operation, and Kingston was well trained in
his business. He was, as well, a pleasant addition to the plane’s
company.
They flew so high that landmarks had to be scrutinized through the
glasses to make sure of their nature. They passed over three states
in reaching the coast. From their height it seemed as though the
ocean were a hazy blue sheet of glass with a white or yellow line
marking the shore. They scaled down nearer to it and saw great ships
tossing on mighty billows and the surf viciously beating the sands of
Cape Cod.
“Ho!” cried Ned. “I hope you are satisfied, Tom. It looks just as
safe to land down there as though the ocean were a boiling cauldron.”
“It is exactly what we have come to experience,” declared Tom.
“Well, I hope everything is all right,” grumbled his friend. “But I
want to tell you right now that I would rather be on dry land than on
this plane when she hits that sea. Whew!”
If Tom Swift felt any such fear he did not express it. But his face
was rather grim as he scaled down the airways and brought the huge
flying boat hovering above the tossing waves. To Brannigan, in the
tail of the craft, he said:
“Test out your levers. See that everything is buzzing right. We are
going to subject her to a severe test. All ready?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” rejoined Brannigan through the tube. “Let her go!”
Kingston, whose little coop was directly behind the pilot room, stuck
his head out of his door at that moment and shouted:
“Have a care about bumping His Majesty’s liner, _Cantoria_. She’s
right over yonder—you can see her. I just picked up a ’gram from her
operator objecting to such big planes as ours being tried out in the
steamship lanes.”
“What’s the matter with that limey?” demanded Ned. “Does he think he
owns the whole ocean?”
“He is complaining to the U. S. Weather Bureau about us, just the
same,” declared the operator.
Tom shifted certain levers and the huge plane dived for the riotous
surface of the sea. She swooped like a sea-eagle, skimmed the
froth-capped waves for some distance, and then settled upon the water
like a duck.
Foam and spray dashed completely over the wings and the boat’s
upperworks. They could scarcely see through the side ports. The roar
of the waters pouring over the half buried craft was deafening. For
the next few minutes the _Winged Arrow_ was put through a test that
surely would have wrecked a less strongly built craft.
The compressed air between the skins of the boat had to be increased
considerably before she stopped rolling. The airtight pontoons at
either end of the wings were not sufficient stabilizers. It seemed
that Tom Swift’s ingenuity had actually overcome a drawback that had
baffled inventors of similar planes.
The flying boat floated like a well ballasted sailing craft. She
climbed the steep waves, pitched over their tops, and slid to the
depths of the trough between them with surprising ease. When the
waves broke against her wings, leaping hungrily to overwhelm them,
the perfect balance of the hull brought the whole ship back to an
even keel in a few seconds.
Ned Newton was delighted. Aside from feeling some little disturbance
in his stomach because of the boisterousness of the waves, he
considered the test a great success.
“If this was my flying boat I certainly would slap myself on the back
and give three cheers,” he declared.
“You must be a remarkable contortionist to be able to do that,”
rejoined Tom, chuckling. “But I really am not posing. It seems as
though we had hit the right idea. Hullo! What is the matter with
Kingston?”
Through the glass half of the door to the radio coop they both saw
that the operator seemed excited. He had the eartabs clamped to his
head and was evidently listening in on something very important.
With his right hand he wrote a few words quickly and then wheeled and
beckoned Ned.
“Get this to the chief,” he said abruptly. “It is relayed from Block
Island. There may be more of it.”
Ned wheeled about and thrust the paper into Tom’s hand. The latter
read the message at a glance:
“T. Swift, com. seaplane _Winged Arrow_, offshore, N. Atlantic,
relay: Return immediately very important news of Damon and
Nestor.—B. Swift.”
Tom stared from the message to his friend.
“What do you know about that?” he exclaimed.
“Don’t even know what it’s all about,” grumbled the treasurer of the
Swift Construction Company.
“Look at it!” ejaculated Tom, and handed Ned the radio message.
“Great whales and little fishes!” gasped Ned, when he had read it.
“It is from your father!”
“That’s right.”
“It can’t be any joke, then,” considered Ned. “Mr. Damon and Mary’s
father must be in trouble.”
“But if they are up in Iceland and we are down here, what can I do to
help them out of trouble?” cried Tom anxiously.
“That seems to be the question before the house,” replied Ned. “Guess
we’ll have to go back home to find out. Your father is not very
explicit, that is certain.”
“He would not send this message at such a time unless the matter was
urgent. I am glad we have been able to try out the _Winged Arrow_ as
well as we have. Poor Mr. Nestor! Suppose he has died up there? Or
maybe Mr. Damon is ill.”
“I hope not!” cried Ned.
“If it is anything like that, somebody will have to take passage
at once for Iceland,” Tom went on, in a worried way. “Mary and her
mother have nobody to look to for help but father and me. Mary’s
uncle is traveling around the world, you know.”
“Then the duty devolves on you, does it?” demanded the other young
fellow. “And how about business? What about the Swift Construction
Company? You will have to drop this flying boat right where she is!”
“I hope not,” returned Tom, and he smiled again, though rather
ruefully. “If we dropped her where she is, she would go to the bottom
of a very deep part of the Atlantic, Ned.”
“Don’t joke! This is too serious,” said his chum.
“You are right. It must be serious—particularly for the Nestors. If
we have to delay the exploitation of the _Winged Arrow_, all right.
The need of Mary and her mother comes first.”
It might have been difficult to convince Ned of this; but he made no
further rejoinder. It did seem too bad that, just as success seemed
to have crowned Tom Swift’s efforts in the building of a wonderful
flying boat, a chance like this news from Iceland happened to
postpone the final speed and other trials of the new invention.
Tom did not waste time even in replying to the wireless message.
As they could not communicate direct with the plant at Shopton he
knew that, barring accidents, the flying boat would make her landing
behind the Swift Construction Company stockade before a radiogram
could be delivered to his father.
Out of the boisterous sea the great flying boat rose like some huge
waterfowl taking to the air. Her compressed air compartments were
gradually emptied until she gained a perfect poise in the air, some
mile or more above the sea.
Tom guided her in a half circle and she headed for the shore. The
seaplane flew directly over the British ship, _Cantoria_, the captain
of which had complained of the danger to ordinary shipping by the
nearness of the plane.
“This fact will undoubtedly make the commander of that ship write to
the _Times_ when he gets back to London,” chuckled Ned.
The seaplane rose higher as she neared the shore. The yellow streak
of Cape Cod was only to be dimly distinguished through the lower
windows of the pilot room. Night had fallen when the _Winged Arrow_
spiraled over Shopton and the works. Tom made a ground landing
instead of sinking to the surface of Lake Carlopa. He was in a hurry
to get home.
The searchlights in the yard of the shops served as lighthouses for
the plane’s landing. She came down perfectly, bumping along the
ground easily upon the wheels, and finally stopped not far from the
highroad.
The Swift house was not far away. Aside from Koku, who had been on
watch continually since the plane had flown away, there were few
people to greet the crew. Tom and Ned left the mechanicians to attend
to the flying boat and hurried up to the house.
Mr. Barton Swift, very much disturbed for him, was walking the
library floor. He hurried to greet Tom and Ned, waving a blue
cablegram in his hand.
“What is it, father?” Tom asked. “What has happened to Mr. Damon and
Mary’s father?”
“I don’t know,” confessed Barton Swift. “I have been wondering and
worrying all the afternoon. And now I know less about it than I did
at first.”
“How is that?”
“It has crossed my mind that the message may be a fake. It may come
from some schemer who wishes us ill. But on the face of it—here! Read
it!”
He thrust the cablegram into Tom’s hand. The young inventor read, and
read it aloud for Ned Newton’s benefit:
“Mes. Damon and Nestor lost with treasure chest on iceberg in
Greenland Sea between Greenland and Iceland. _Kalrye_ a wreck and
our boats separated. Believe castaways alive on giant iceberg.
Cable funds for rescue, or advise—Olaf Karofsen, com. _Kalrye_,
Reykjavik.”