Of course the trailer wheels were useless in a case of this kind, and the tank had to be guided by the two belts run at varying speeds.
“Here we go!” cried Tom, and the tank started. It was a queer sensation to be moving upside down, but it did not last very long. Tom steered the tank straight at the opposite wail of the ravine, where it rose steeply. One of the broad belts ran up on that side. The other was revolved in the opposite direction. Up and up, at a sickening angle, went Tank A.
Slowly the tank careened, turning completely over on her longer axis, until, as Tom shut off the power, he and his friends once more found themselves standing where they belonged—on the floor of the observation tower.
“Right side up with care!” quoted Ned, with a laugh. “Well, that was some stunt—believe me!”
“Bless my corn plaster, I should say so!” cried Mr. Damon.
“Well, I’m glad it happened,” commented Tom. “It showed what she can do when she’s put to it. Now we’ll get out of this ditch.”
Slowly the tank lumbered along, proper side up now, the men in the motor room reporting that everything was all right, and that with the exception of a slight unimportant break, no damage had been done.
Straight for the opposite steep side of the gully Tom directed his strange craft, and at a point where the wall of the gulch gave a good footing for the steel belts, Tank A pulled herself out and up to level ground.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” remarked Ned, with a sigh of relief, as the tank waddled along a straight stretch. “And to think of having to do that same thing under heavy fire!”
“That’s part of the game,” remarked Tom. “And don’t forget that we can fire, too—or we’ll be able to when I get the guns in place. They’ll help to balance the machine better, too, and render her less likely to overturn.”
Tom considered the test a satisfactory one and, a little later, guided his tank back to the shop, where men were set to work repairing the little damage done and making some adjustments.
“What’s next on the program?” asked Ned of his chum one day about a week later. “Any more tests in view?”
“Yes,” answered Tom. “I’ve got the machine guns in place now. We are going to try them out and also endeavor to demolish a building and some barbed wire. Like to come along?”
“I would!” cried Ned.
A little later the tank was making her way over a field. Tom pointed toward a deserted factory, which had long been partly in ruins, but some of the walls of which still stood.
“I’m going to bombard that,” he announced, and then try to batter it down and roll over it like a Juggernaut. Are you game?”
“Do your worst!” laughed Ned. “Let me man one of the machine guns!”
“All right,” agreed Tom. “Concentrate your fire. Make believe you’re going against the Germans!”
Slowly, but with resistless energy, the tank approached the ruined factory.
“Are you sure there’s no one in it, Tom?”
“Sure! Blaze away!”
CHAPTER XV
ACROSS COUNTRY
Ned Newton sighted his machine gun. Tom had showed him how to work it, and indeed the young bank clerk had had some practice with a weapon like this, erected on a stationary tripod. But this was the first time Ned had attempted to fire from the tank while it was moving, and he found it an altogether different matter.
“Say, it sure is hard to aim where you want to!” he shouted across to Tom, it being necessary, even in the conning tower, where this one gun was mounted, to speak loudly to make one’s self heard above the hum, the roar and rattle of the machinery in the interior of Tank A, and below and to the rear of the two young men.
“Well, that’s part of the game,” Tom answered. “I’m sending her along over as smooth ground as I can pick out, but it’s rough at best. Still this is nothing to what you’ll get in Flanders.”
“If I get there!” exclaimed Ned grimly. “Well, here goes!” and once more he tried to aim the machine gun at the middle of the brick wall of the ruined factory.
A moment later there was a rattle and a roar as the quick-firing mechanism started, and a veritable hail of bullets swept out at the masonry. Tom and Ned could see where they struck, knocking off bits of stone, brick and cement.
“Sweep it, Ned! Sweep it!” cried Tom. “Imagine a crowd of Germans are charging out at you, and sweep ’em out of the way!”
Obeying this command, the young man moved the barrel of the machine gun from side to side and slightly up and down. The effect was at once apparent. The wall showed spatter-marks of the bullets over a wider area, and had a body of Teutons been before the factory, or even inside it, many of them would have been accounted for, since there were several holes in the wall through which Ned’s bullets sped, carrying potential death with them.
“That’s better!” shouted Tom. “That’ll do the business! Now I’m going to open her up, Ned!”
“Open her up?” cried the young bank clerk, as he ceased firing.
“Yes; crack the wall of that factory as I would a nut! Watch me take it on high—that is, if the old tank doesn’t go back on me!”
“You mean you’re going to ride right over that building, Tom?”
“I mean I’m going to try! If Tank A does as I expect her to, she’ll butt into that wall, crush it down by force and weight, and then waddle over the ruins. Watch!”
Tom sent some signals to the motor room. At once there was noticed an increase in the vibrations of the ponderous machine.
“They’re giving her more speed,” said Tom. “And I guess we’ll need it.”
Straight for the old factory went Tank A. In spite of its ruined condition, some of the walls were still firm, and seemed to offer a big obstacle to even so powerful an engine of war as this monstrous tank.
“Get ready now, Ned,” Tom advised. “And when I crack her open for you cut loose with the machine gun again. This gun is supposed to fire straight ahead and a little to either side. There are other guns at left and right, amidships, as I might say, and there’s also one in the stern, to take care of any attack from that direction.
“The men in charge of them will fire at the same time you do, and it will be as near like a real attack as we can make it—with the exception of not being fired back at. And I wouldn’t mind if such were the case, for I don’t believe anything, outside of heavy artillery, will have any effect on this tank.”
Tank A was now almost at her maximum speed as she approached closer to the deserted factory. Ned and Tom, in the conning tower, saw the largest of the remaining walls looming before them. Straight at it rushed the ponderous machine, and the next moment there came a shock which almost threw Ned away from his gun and back against the steel wall behind him.
“Hold fast!” cried Tom. “Here we go! Fire. Ned! Fire!”
There was a crash as the blunt nose of the great war tank hit the wall and crumpled it up.
A great hole was made in the masonry, and what was not crushed under the caterpillar belts of the tank fell in a shower of bricks, stone and cement on top of the machine.
Like a great hail storm the broken masonry pelted the steel sides and top of the tank. But she felt them no more than does an alligator the attacks of a colony of ants. Right on through the dust the tank crushed her way. Added to the noise of the falling walls was that of the machine guns, which were barking away like a kennel of angry hounds eager to be unleashed at the quarry.
Ned kept his gun going until the heat of it warned him to stop and let the barrel cool, or he knew he would jam some of the mechanism. The other guns were firing, too, and the bullets sent up little spatter points of dust as they hit.
“Great jumping hoptoads!” yelled Ned above the riot of racket outside and inside. “Feel her go, Tom!”
“Yes, she’s just chewing it up, all right!” cried the young inventor, his eyes shining with delight.
The tank had actually burst her way through the soli
d wall of the old factory, permission to complete the demolition of which Tom had secured from the owners. Then the great machine kept right on. She fairly “walked” over the piles of masonry, dipped down into what had been a basement, now partly filled with debris, and kept on toward another wall.
“I’m going through that, too!” cried Tom.
And he did, knocking it down and sending his tank over the piled-up ruins, while the machine guns barked, coughed and spluttered, as Ned and the others inside the tank held back the firing levers.
Right through the opposite wall, as through the one she had already demolished, the tank careened on her way, to emerge, rather battered and dust-covered, on the other side of what was left of the factory. And there was not much of it left. Tank A had well-nigh completed its demolition.
“If there’d been a nest of Germans in there,” said Tom, as he brought the machine to a stop in a field beyond the factory, “they’d have gotten out in a hurry.”
“Or taken the consequences,” added Ned, as he wiped the sweat from his powder-blackened and oil-smeared face. “I certainly kept my gun going.”
“Yes, and so did the others,” reported one of the mechanics, as he emerged from the “cubby hole,” where the great motors had now ceased their hum and roar.
“How’d she stand it?” asked Tom.
“All right inside,” answered the man. “I was wondering how she looks from the outside.”
“Oh, it would take more than that to damage her,” said Tom, with pardonable pride. “That was pie for her! Solid concrete, which she may have to chew up on the Western front, may present another kind of problem, but I guess she’ll be able to master that too. Well, let’s have a look.”
He and Ned, with some of the crew and gunners, went outside the tank. She was a sorry-looking sight, very different from the trim appearance she had presented when she first left the shop. Bricks, bits of stone, and piles of broken cement in chunks and dust lay thick on her broad back. But no real damage had been done, as a hasty examination showed.
“Well, are you satisfied, Tom?” asked his chum.
“Yes, and more,” was the answer. “Of course this wasn’t the hardest test to which she could have been submitted, but it will do to show what punishment she can stand. Being shot at from big guns is another matter. I’ll have to wait until she gets to Flanders to see what effect that will have. But I know the kind of armor skin she has, and that doesn’t worry me. There’s one thing more I want to do while I have her out now.”
“What’s that?” asked Ned.
“Take her for a long trip cross country, and then shove her through some extra heavy barbed wire. I’m certain she’ll chew that up, but I want to see it actually done. So now, if you want to come along, Ned, we’ll go cross country.”
“I’m with you!”
“Get inside then. We’ll let the dust and masonry blow and rattle off as we go along.”
The tank started off across the fields, which stretched for many miles on either side of the deserted factory, when suddenly Ned, who was again at his post in the observation tower, called:
“Look, Tom!”
“What at?”
“That corner of the factory which is still standing. Look at those men coming out and running away!”
Ned pointed, and his chum, leaning over from the steering wheel and controls, gave a start of surprise as he saw three figures clambering down over the broken debris and making their way out of what had once been a doorway.
“Did they come out of the factory, Ned?”
“They surely did! And unless I miss my guess they were in it, or around it, when we went through like a fellow carrying the football over the line for a touchdown.”
“In there when the tank broke open things?”
“I think so. I didn’t see them before, but they certainly ran out as we started away.”
“This has got to be looked into!” decided Tom. “Come on, Ned! It may be more of that spy business!”
Tom Swift stopped the tank and prepared to get out.
CHAPTER XVI
THE OLD BARN
“There’s no use chasing after ’em, Tom,” observed Ned, as the two chums stood side by side outside the tank and gazed after the three men running off across the fields as fast as they could go. “They’ve got too much a start of us.”
“I guess you’re right, Ned,” agreed Tom. “And we can’t very well pursue them in the tank. She goes a bit faster than anything of her build, but a running man is more than a match for her in a short distance. If I had the Hawk here, there’d be a different story to tell.”
“Well, seeing that you haven’t,” replied Ned, “suppose we let them go—which we’ll have to, whether we want to or not—and see where they were hiding and if they left any traces behind.”
“That’s a good idea,” returned Tom.
The place whence the men had emerged was a portion of the old factory farthest removed from the walls the tank had crunched its way through. Consequently, that part was the least damaged.
Tom and Ned came to what seemed to have been the office of the building when the factory was in operation. A door, from which most of the glass had been broken, hung on one hinge, and, pushing this open, the two chums found themselves in a room that bore evidences of having been the bookkeeper’s department. There were the remains of cabinet files, and a broken letter press, while in one corner stood a safe.
“Maybe they were cracking that,” said Ned.
“They were wasting their time if they were,” observed Tom, “for the combination is broken—any one can open it,” and he demonstrated this by swinging back one of the heavy doors.
A quantity of papers fell out, or what had been papers, for they were now torn and the edges charred, as if by some recent fire.
“They were burning these!” cried Ned. “You can smell the smoke yet. They came here to destroy some papers, and we surprised them!”
“I believe you’re right,” agreed Tom. “The ashes are still warm.” And he tested them with his hand. “They wanted to destroy something, and when they found we were here they clapped the blazing stuff into the safe, thinking it would burn there.
“But the closing of the doors cut off the supply of air and the fire smouldered and went out. It burned enough so that it didn’t leave us very much in the way of evidence, though,” went on Tom ruefully, as he poked among the charred scraps.
“Maybe you can read some of ’em,” suggested Ned.
“Part of the writing is in German,” Tom said, as he looked over the mass. “I don’t believe it would be worth while to try it. Still, I can save it. Here, I’ll sweep the stuff into a box, and if we get a chance we can try to patch it together,” and finding a broken box in what had been the factory office the young inventor managed to get into it the charred remains of the papers.
A further search failed to reveal anything that would be useful in the way of evidence to determine what object the three men could have had in hiding in the ruins, and Tom and Ned returned to the tank.
“What do you think about them, Tom?” asked Ned, as they were about to start off once more for the cross-country test.
“Well, it seems like a silly thing to say—as if I imagined my tank was all there was in this part of the country to make trouble—but I believe those men had some connection with Simpson and with that spy Schwen!”
“I agree with you!” exclaimed Ned. “And I think if we could get head or tail of those burned papers we’d find that there was some correspondence there between the man I saw up the tree and the workman you had arrested.”
“Too bad we weren’t a bit quicker,” commented Tom. “They must have been in the factory when we charged it—probably came there to be in seclusion while they talked, plotted and planned. They must have been afraid to go out when the tank was walking through the walls.”
“I guess that’s it,” agreed Ned. “Did you recognize any of the men, Tom?”
“No, I didn’t see ’em as soon as you did, and when they were running they had their backs toward me. Was Simpson one?”
“I can’t be sure. If one was, I guess he’ll think we are keeping pretty closely after him, and he may give this part of the country a wide berth.”
“I hope he does,” returned Tom. “Do you know, Ned, I have an idea that these fellows—Schwen Simpson, and those back of them, including Blakeson—are trying to get hold of the secret of my tank for the Germans.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. But you’ve got it finished now, haven’t you? They can’t get your patents away from you.”
“No, it isn’t that,” said Tom. “There are certain secrets about the mechanism of the tank—the way I’ve increased the speed and power, the use of the spanners, and things like that—which would be useful for the Germans to know. I wouldn’t want them to find out these secrets, and they could do that if they were in the tank a while, or had her in their possession.”
“They couldn’t do that, Tom—get possession of her—could they?”
“There’s no telling. I’m going to be doubly on the watch. That fellow Blakeson is in the pay of the plotters, I believe. He has a big machine shop, and he might try to duplicate my tank if he knew how she was made inside.”
“I see! That’s why he was inquiring about a good machinist, I suppose, though he’ll be mightily surprised when he learns it was you he was talking to the time your Hawk met with the little mishap.”
“Yes, I guess maybe he will be a bit startled,” agreed Tom. “But I haven’t seen him around lately, and maybe he has given up.”
“Don’t trust to that!” warned Ned.
The tank was now progressing easily along over fields, hesitating not at small or big ditches, flow going uphill and now down, across a stretch of country thinly settled, where even fences were a rarity. When they came to wooden ones Tom had the workmen get out and take down the bars. Of course the tank could have crushed them like toothpicks, but Tom was mindful of the rights of farmers, and a broken fence might mean strayed cows, or the letting of cattle into a field of grain or corn, to the damage of both cattle and fodder.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 265
