Ned is Worried
Tom Swift did not answer for several seconds. He stood holding the
paper Ned had given him, the sun slanting on the picture of the big
British tank. But the young inventor did not appear to see it. Instead,
his eyes were as though contemplating something afar off.
"Well, this gets me!" cried Ned, his voice showing impatience. "Here I
go and get a picture of the latest machine the British armies are
smashing up the Boches with, and bring it to you fresh from the mail--I
even quit my Liberty Bond business to do it, and I know some dandy
prospects, too--and here you look at it like a--like a fish!" burst out
Ned.
"Say, old man, I guess that's right!" admitted Tom. "I wasn't thinking
about it, to tell you the truth."
"Why not?" Ned demanded. "Isn't it great, Tom? Did you ever see
anything like it?"
"Yes."
"You did?" Cried Ned, in surprise. "Where? Say, Tom Swift, are you
keeping something from me?"
"I mean no, Ned. I never have seen a British tank."
"Well, did you ever see a picture like this before?" Ned persisted.
"No, not exactly like that But--"
"Well, what do you think of it?" cried the young banker, who was giving
much of his time to selling bonds for the Government. "Isn't it great?"
Tom considered a moment before replying. Then he said slowly:
"Well, yes, Ned, it is a pretty good machine. But--"
"'But!' Howling tomcats! Say, what's the 'matter with you, anyhow, Tom?
This is great! 'But!' 'But me no buts!' This is, without exception, the
greatest thing out since an airship. It will win the war for us and the
Allies, too, and don't you forget it! Fritz's barbed wire and dugouts
and machine gun emplacements can't stand for a minute against these
tanks! Why, Tom, they can crawl on their back as well as any other way,
and they don't mind a shower of shrapnel or a burst of machine gun
lead, any more than an alligator minds a swarm of gnats. The only thing
that makes 'em hesitate a bit is a Jack Johnson or a Bertha shell, and
it's got to be a pretty big one, and in the right place, to do much
damage. These tanks are great, and there's nothing like 'em."
"Oh, yes there is, Ned!"
"There is!" cried Ned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there may be something like them--soon."
"There may? Say, Tom--"
"Now don't ask me a lot of questions, Ned, for I can't answer them.
When I say there may be something like them, I mean it isn't beyond the
realms of possibility that some one--perhaps the Germans--may turn out
even bigger and better tanks."
"Oh!" And Ned's voice showed his disappointment. "I thought maybe you
were in on that game yourself, Tom. Say, couldn't you get up something
almost as good as this?" and he indicated the picture in the paper.
"Isn't that wonderful?"
"Oh, well, it's good, Ned, but there are others. Yes, Dad, I'm coming,"
he called, as he saw his father beckoning to him from a distant
building.
"Well, I've got to get along," said Ned. "But I certainly am
disappointed, Tom. I thought you'd go into a fit over this
picture--it's one of the first allowed to get out of England, my London
friend said. And instead of enthusing you're as cold as a clam;" and
Ned shook his head in puzzled and disappointed fashion as he walked
slowly along beside the young inventor.
They passed a new building, one of the largest in the group of the many
comprising the Swift plant. Ned looked at the door which bore a notice
to the effect that no one was admitted unless bearing a special permit,
or accompanied by Mr. Swift or Tom.
"What's this, Tom?" asked Ned. "Some new wrinkle?"
"Yes, an invention I'm working on. It isn't in shape yet to be seen."
"It must be something big, Tom," observed Ned, as he viewed the large
building.
"It is."
"And say, what a whopping big fence you've got around the back yard!"
went on the young banker. "Looks like a baseball field, but it would
take some scrambling on the part of a back-lots kid to get over it."
"That's what it's for--to keep people out."
"I see! Well, I've got to get along. I'm a bit back in my day's quota
of selling Liberty Bonds, and I've got to hustle. I'm sorry I bothered
you about that tank picture, Tom."
"Oh, it wasn't a bother--don't think that for a minute, Ned! I was glad
to see it."
"Well, he didn't seem so, and his manner was certainly queer," mused
Ned, as he walked away, and turned in time to see Tom enter the new
building, which had such a high fence all around it. "I never saw him
more indifferent. I wonder if Tom isn't interested in seeing Uncle Sam
help win this war? That's the way it struck me. I thought surely Tom
would go up in the air, and say this was a dandy," and Ned unfolded the
paper and took another look at the British tank photograph. "If there's
anything can beat that I'd like to see it," he mused.
"But I suppose Tom has discovered some new kind of air stabilizer, or a
different kind of carburetor that will vaporize kerosene as well as
gasolene. If he has, why doesn't he offer it to Uncle Sam? I wonder if
Tom is pro-German? No, of Course he can't be!" and Ned laughed at his
own idea.
"At the same time, it is queer," he mused on. "There is something wrong
with Tom Swift."
Once more Ned looked at the picture. It was a representation of one of
the newest and largest of the British tanks. In appearance these are
not unlike great tanks, though they are neither round nor square, being
shaped, in fact, like two wedges with the broad ends put together, and
the sharper ends sticking out, though there is no sharpness to a tank,
the "noses" both being blunt.
Around each outer edge runs an endless belt of steel plates, hinged
together, with ridges at the joints, and these broad belts of steel
plates, like the platforms of some moving stairways used in department
stores, moving around, give motion to the tank.
Inside, well protected from the fire of enemy guns by steel plates, are
the engines for driving the belts, or caterpillar wheels, as they are
called. There is also the steering apparatus, and the guns that fire on
the enemy. There are cramped living and sleeping quarters for the
tank's crew, more limited than those of a submarine.
The tank is ponderous, the smallest of them, which were those first
constructed, weighing forty-two tons, or about as much as a good-sized
railroad freight car. And it is this ponderosity, with its slow but
resistless movement, that gives the tank its power.
The tank, by means of the endless belts of steel plates, can travel
over the roughest country. It can butt into a tree, a stone wall, or a
house, knock over the obstruction, mount it, crawl over it, and slide
down into a hole on the other side and crawl out again, on the level,
or at an angle. Even if overturned, the tanks can sometimes right
themselves and keep on. At the rear are trailer wheels, partly used in
steering and partly for reaching over gaps or getting out of holes. The
tanks can turn in their own length, by moving one belt in one direction
and the other oppositely.
Inside there is nothing much but machinery of the gasolene type, and
the machine guns. The tank is closed except for small openings out of
which the guns project, and slots through which the men inside look out
to guide themselves or direct their fire.
Such, in brief, is a British tank, one of the most powerful and
effective weapons yet loosed against the Germans. They are useful in
tearing down the barbed-wire entanglements on the Boche side of No
Man's Land, and they can clear the way up to and past the trenches,
which they can straddle and wriggle across like some giant worm.
"And to think that Tom Swift didn't enthuse over these!" murmured Ned.
"I wonder what's the matter with him!"