THE HURRICANE
“WHAT’S going to happen, Tom?” asked Ned as he saw his chum leap toward
the motor room. “Are we in danger?”
“In danger of losing time on account of a hot bearing, yes,” admitted
Tom. “But in no danger as far as being forced down is concerned. I had
planned for this—a landing in the sea.”
“Our boat-like body will keep us afloat,” explained Brinkley to Ned,
whose strong point was certainly not mechanics, but finance. “You know
we’re a hydroplane as well as an aeroplane.”
“I had forgotten it for a moment,” admitted Tom’s chum.
The first alarm over, he watched Tom and the three mechanics so
manipulate the _Air Monarch_ as to bring her out of the partial nose
dive into which she had fallen on losing speed. She was now coming down
to the sea on a gentle slant.
“I don’t like nose dives!” murmured Tom, remembering the peril which he
and Mary had so narrowly escaped from with the help of Brinkley and
Hartman.
“We’ll make a three point landing,” observed Peltok as Tom, taking
charge, began to guide his craft toward the waves which Ned could see,
through the plate glass bottom in the cabin, rushing, as it were, up to
meet them.
Not quite as gently as a feather, but with hardly enough of a jar to
spill the water in the glasses on the table which Tom and Ned had quit
in such a hurry, the _Air Monarch_ sank to the surface of the sea where
she rode easily under the influence of a gentle swell.
“Are we going to stay here?” Ned asked, when he found that the craft was
making no forward progress.
“Not any longer than we can help,” Tom answered. “Every minute counts
when you’re trying to circle the globe in twenty days. But we’ll have to
wait for that bearing to cool. Did she chew up the metal?” he asked
Peltok, referring to the soft anti-friction lining material which the
axle, or shaft, of any fast-moving machine comes in contact with instead
of directly on the bearing itself.
“I’m afraid so,” was the answer. “But I can cast a new journal for you.”
“Good!” exclaimed Tom. “You three had better get something to eat,” he
added to Brinkley and the others. “Ned and I will stand watch. Not that
there’s anything we can do until she cools down, though,” he added, with
a rueful laugh.
Since the machinists had had nothing to eat since early in the morning,
before the take-off, they did ample justice to the meal the tank man had
gotten ready.
Meanwhile, Tom and Ned went to the engine room to examine the damage.
The _Air Monarch_ was gently rising and falling on a long swell. Just
where they had come down Tom did not know, without taking a marine
observation, but he judged it to be perhaps four or five hundred miles
off the Atlantic coast—not a bad bit of distance to have covered in
this time. But of course he realized he would have to do much better
than this to win the race.
It did not take Tom long to find the overheated bearing. It had become
red-hot from lack of oil, which was supposed to be fed to it constantly,
but it was now cooling down and when it was completely cool the burned
anti-friction metal could be cut out and new put in.
“There’s what did the damage!” exclaimed Tom as he unscrewed the
coupling of a small copper oil feed pipe and took out a little ball of
what seemed to be rubber. “That kept the oil from cooling the bearing.”
“Do you think the _Red Arrow_ imps had anything to do with that?” asked
Ned.
“It’s possible, of course,” Tom replied. “But hardly probable. This
isn’t one of the main bearings, and the oil feed pipe would be hard to
get at to tinker with. Hussy and that fellow we caught in the hangar
night before last didn’t have time to unscrew the coupling, slip in the
rubber, and then put it together again. And it was all right when we
started.
“What I think is that this bit of rubber came from a gasket—it just
naturally worked loose and was forced into the pipe. I use a forced feed
oil system. It’s just one of those accidents that will happen. Lucky it
wasn’t any worse.”
“Have we got to lay to like this until the bearing is fixed?”
“No,” Tom said, after looking over the motors. “We can taxi along on the
surface with one motor, but of course not as fast as if the two were
working. However, it will help some, and every mile and minute count.
Whew, she certainly got hot!” he exclaimed, as he burned himself
slightly from putting his hand for too long a period on the defective
bearing.
The three machinists were so eager to make repairs and hop off again
that they hurried through their dinner and were soon in the motor room
again. There Peltok proved his worth, as did Hartman and Brinkley. They
wasted no time, but began taking down the motor.
While the aeroplane man and his tank companion did this, Peltok was busy
casting a new bearing, filing it down to a perfect fit so the axle would
run smoothly.
“Will it bother you if I start up with one motor?” asked Tom of the
three who were working at top speed to finish the repairs in the
shortest possible time.
“Not a bit!” Peltok answered. “You can’t go very fast with only one
motor running, and she’ll ride on a pretty even keel, for there is
scarcely any sea at all—it’s almost a dead calm.”
“But it isn’t going to remain so long,” stated Ned, who knew a little of
weather signs.
“Why not?” asked Tom.
“The glass is falling,” and Ned pointed to the barometer. “I think we’re
in for a storm.”
“It does look so,” remarked Tom, who noted the reading now and compared
it with the height of the mercury column when they had started. “I guess
we’re in for a blow. It will be better to take it up above than down
here.”
“We’ll finish this as soon as we can,” said Peltok, but there was no
occasion to say that. Tom and Ned could see that the three were doing
their best.
So, having learned that he would not disturb them by sending his craft
along, the young inventor started the undamaged motor and soon the _Air
Monarch_ was moving at fairly rapid speed over the surface of the calm
sea. Tom steered by a binnacle compass, heading due east, and knew that
every mile he gained was so much to the good.
With the other motor in commission, he knew he could more than double
the present speed. But his main reliance was going to be travel in the
air, for that was his speediest medium.
After about an hour, during which the craft had sped along for several
miles over the sea, they ran into a thick fog, which seemed another
indication of a change in the weather.
“Got a fog horn?” asked Ned, as he stood beside Tom in the motor control
cabin.
“What for?”
“To signal so we won’t run into any ships.”
“I guess we won’t be down on the sea much longer,” Tom said, for he had
asked Ned to take the wheel while he went back to note what progress the
three mechanics were making. “They have almost finished. We’ll be going
up directly.”
“Glad of it,” remarked Ned. “I don’t like it down here—not in a fog.”
“There’s no danger,” began Tom, with a laugh. “I’ll take a chance——”
He was interrupted by a heavy, throbbing noise in the air over their
heads. The fog was too thick to enable them to see what it was, but Ned
cried:
“Wind!”
“Of a sort—yes!” admitted Tom. “But it’s wind from the propellers of
some sort of an aeroplane! There’s a craft passing overhead.”
When Ned listened more carefully he knew this to be right. Some big
dirigible or aeroplane was passing above them, and the throb of her
motors and the beat of her propellers could plainly be heard.
“Think that might be the _Red Arrow_ passing us?” asked Ned.
“It’s possible,” Tom admitted. “She’s got powerful motors.”
They looked upward, trying to pierce the fog, and a moment later the
wind began to blow, tearing the blanket of vapor apart. It was just in
time for Tom and Ned to see, high up, a great craft heading toward the
east. But whether it was the _Red Arrow_ or some other machine they
could not tell. It seemed likely that it was one which was racing
against Tom for the world circuit prize.
Then the fog drifted in again and there was a wall of white all about
them. Ned looked at the glass once more and found that it was still
dropping. As he took this in he gave a low whistle.
“It’s going to blow and blow soon,” he said to Tom. “How much longer are
we going to be here?”
“Not much longer, I hope,” answered the young inventor a bit
impatiently. The sight of that big craft passing overhead had made him
apprehensive. “I’ll go and find out. Keep her on this course, Ned,” and
he turned the steering wheel over to his chum.
Hardly had Tom gone back to the motor room than the voice of Peltok was
heard exclaiming:
“She’s done! The bearing is finished. Now we can use the other engine!”
This was good news, and a few minutes later, when it was made certain
that the oil feed system was working properly, the second motor was
started and the _Air Monarch_ began to gather speed.
“We’ll be up in a minute,” Tom said, taking the wheel from Ned. Hardly
had he spoken than as if a giant’s breath had blown it away, the fog
vanished and out of the west rushed a wind of great force. It caught the
craft broadside on and heeled her over so far that she was in danger of
capsizing. But Tom speeded up the starboard motor and pulled the machine
around just in time.
“Go on up!” yelled Peltok. “There’s a hurricane coming! Go on up!”
“Up she is!” echoed Tom Swift. With a motion of his hand he turned more
gasoline into the motors and they roared out as if eager to do their
work. The _Air Monarch_ surged forward over the surface of the sea,
gathering speed to enable her to lift herself into the air.
Just as Tom was about to pull the lever of the rear elevating rudder
planes, the hurricane burst with all its force around the craft,
twirling her about, howling through the struts and wire stays like ten
thousand demons and sending a shower of spray clear over the top wings.
“We’re in for it now!” yelled Tom, as he headed the craft up on a long
slant.