Читать книгу The Flight of the Silver Ship - Margaret Alison Johansen - Страница 8
ОглавлениеTHE SILVER SHIP
For nearly four years David had been an apprentice-student at the Lighter-than-Air School at Goodlow Field. During that time many changes had taken place. The school, at first housed in a single building on the Goodlow property, now had commodious brick buildings for classrooms, laboratories and dormitories. The school was run on an original scheme, which had proved most successful. It was co-operative. The students received free tuition and a small salary, in return for which they gave their labor. Any student falling below a certain grade was immediately dismissed.
This benevolent scheme of education was made possible by the kindness of one of America’s greatest philanthropists, Mr. John Harrison Hammond, who added the strength of his millions to the Goodlow holdings at Ayre.
The erection of the great new hangar, or dock, was a story in itself. Even in this day of architectural and engineering miracles, the building was unbelievably huge. It was the largest airport factory and dock in the world. Its floor was a vast concrete spread, the largest uninterrupted floor area yet built. Over this rose the dock structure, a cavernous semi-paraboloid building. From the passing airplane, it looked like a peanut or a silkworm cocoon. It was lighted with tier after tier of glass, in steel frames, so precisely made that a push-button controlled whole units of windows. The enormous doors, two-thirds glass, slid on ball-bearing wheels along tracks imbedded in the floor. These, too, were operated by a one-man lever.
In the top of the arching roof was tackle to hold the dirigibles during construction. Here swung the great shapes slowly evolving from ghostly skeletons to the finished marvels ready for flight. There was space for the construction of two ships at the same time.
The ship that hung there partly finished was the largest yet built. Perfect in line, and carrying many new features; as yet unnamed, her career undecided, she drew David like a magnet. She was his dream ship, at last come true.
At the back of the dock built into the wall was a row of offices for the executives. The central office belonged to Colonel Porter, A. C., U. S. A. retired, Commandant of the school and chief of the dock forces. Colonel Porter was a lifelong friend of Mr. Hammond, and his influence had persuaded the great financier to put his personal energy and many millions of his vast fortune into the great task of today—the development of aviation.
One morning late in May, the two friends sat in Colonel Porter’s office.
“I hardly expected you so soon,” said Colonel Porter.
“Well, Port, I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life around the ships. I like it. I’m not young, but my money can do the hard work. I’m inclined to help you push this business as far as it will go.”
“Exactly what I hoped you would decide to do!” exclaimed the Colonel. “And you have already made a wonderful start. This ship you are financing—you would be surprised at the callers she has had; people from all over the world, looking her over, taking snapshots of her, writing down her dimensions. We could sell her tomorrow.”
“Have any changes been made recently?” asked Mr. Hammond.
“Not a thing,” said Colonel Porter. “Here are the original specifications.” He hunted up a long sheet of paper.
“Never mind the figures,” said Mr. Hammond hastily. “My clipping agency sends me about two a day, usually different, but they all agree that she contains ten million, two hundred thousand cubic feet and is twelve stories high amidship. You know that item seems to make a great hit with the public. What will her lifting power be, Port?”
“Well, hydrogen gives us eighty pounds to the thousand feet, and helium sixty pounds to the thousand. That works out to eight hundred thousand pounds. You can depend on four hundred tons of useful lift.”
“Gosh, that sounds like a lot!”
“It’s handy to have.”
“It does seem, Port, as though we ought to make more than seventy-five miles an hour with those five huge engines.”
“It can’t be done, Harry. Not with a ship that size.”
“Did you decide to use the new weave of linen cloth for the covering?”
“Yes, it is a great improvement. And the new style seam-lacings hold perfectly. What are you going to name the ship, by the way?”
“I selected half a dozen names that sounded good to me,” said Mr. Hammond. “Hammond High-flyer, Harkaway, and some others, but daughter Dulcie objected. Made such a fuss that I said she could name it herself.”
“What were her contributions?” asked Colonel Porter with a smile. He knew Dulcie Hammond.
“She didn’t bother with a choice. She says the ship is named Moonbeam.”
“It is a splendid name. Harry, you don’t know how fine that ship is going to be. She will be the most beautiful ship in the air.”
“I want her to be,” said Mr. Hammond with a dogged, grim look that Colonel Porter knew of old. “I am planning to show that ship to the world, Port. She has got to be perfect. What do you think of following the course of the Graf Zeppelin, for a starter, and beating the G. Z.’s time?”
Colonel Porter whistled.
“I think it would be all right. Her maiden flight, eh? I wonder if she can do it.”
“Nothing like trying, is there? When will she be ready to fly?”
Colonel Porter reflected.
“She will be finished about the first of June. Then she must make some trial flights. You can take off by the fourteenth or fifteenth. You will go, won’t you?”
“You bet! I’m commander of that ship. And I want you to pick out a few of the students, all grades, for staff. I think it would be a wonderful try-out for them.”
“I’ll do it,” said Colonel Porter with enthusiasm.
“Why don’t you come along, Port? You need a rest.”
Colonel Porter groaned.
“Rest? Why, Harry, we are simply swamped with work. I couldn’t possibly get away.”
“I wish you could,” said Mr. Hammond, and was silent a few moments. “Those gas bags,” he continued, following the train of his thought, “they are absolutely impervious to any kind of gas, aren’t they?”
“Absolutely, when made of the substance we call, for lack of a better name, gold-beater’s skin. You know gold-beaters beat their gold into the tissue-like sheets used by the trade, by putting it between layers of the split and cleansed intestines of the ox, and pounding it. For the gas bags, they split and clean the intestines, and lay them out with overlapping edges. Others are laid on top, at right angles. These congeal into a mass of fabric, which is flexible, yet perfectly impervious.”
“It certainly beats all,” said Mr. Hammond. “By the way, Port, whom shall I take on as captain? Got a good man?”
“The best!” said Colonel Porter heartily. “A man named Fraine. Captain Fraine is as good a man as flies. During the war he was shot down and badly wounded, and wears a small silver plate on his head. He has been with us for six years. I advise Fraine.”
“All right; whatever you say goes. Just give me a good staff and a good crew.” Mr. Hammond rose and stretched his great shoulders. “Let’s go look at the Moonbeam.”
The following day Mr. Hammond flew down to New York, but a telegram from Colonel Porter brought him back on the first of June. He found the Moonbeam lowered and workmen putting the final touches on her passenger gondola, establishing the monstrous engines in the five “eggs” that were waiting for them, and varnishing the propellers with the hardest, smoothest spar varnish, to reduce friction. The seam-lacings had been tightened, and the linen cover looked as pale and smooth as aluminum. Men were painting the window casings of the gondola, others were testing the screws and bolts holding the ladders leading from the five eggs into the hull.
Beneath the ship, groups of sightseers moved slowly. They came in chatting shrilly after the manner of the Great American Tourist, but the immensity of the dock and the sight of the vast silver ship, so quiescent in the hands of her makers, seemed to quell them.
Mr. Hammond and Colonel Porter entered the ship through the door in the center of the right side of the passenger gondola. From the doorway, they walked straight ahead along a short passage to the center of the gondola, where they turned to the right, along another passage into the control room. This spacious room occupied the whole forward end of the gondola. The oval front was composed entirely of windows, through which the officer at the wheel had an unobstructed view.
Leaving the control room, the first room on the right was the chart room, a small cubicle fitted with drawers and filing cases. Opposite this was the navigator’s room. Directly back of this was the galley, a small but perfect kitchen, where every inch of space was utilized by the latest electrical cooking utensils. The very sight of the wealth of pots and pans, the roasters, broilers, frying baskets and toasters made Mr. Hammond rub his hands delightedly.
Colonel Porter managed to get Mr. Hammond away from the galley, and they went directly across the passage into the radio room.
The salon came next. This room was dining-room and lounge in one. It filled the breadth of the gondola, and had six broad windows that gave ample space for observation. There were six extension tables, chairs, a couple of divans, and a desk. The chair covers, window curtains and walls were bright with French flowered chintz. It was as gay and luxurious as a private yacht.
Back of this room, with a passage between, were the staterooms; six on each side, with double-decked bunks. These cabins were equipped with every luxury to be found on an ocean liner.
Behind the staterooms, one on either side of the passage, were the wash-rooms, beautifully equipped, one for men and one for women passengers. Everything in the passenger gondola was as near perfect as modern appliances and human ingenuity could make it.
They walked back to the radio room, in a corner of which a steel ladder led up into the hull. There they inspected the quarters of the officers and crew; plainer but just as comfortable as those down below. Mr. Hammond, notwithstanding his size, was well muscled and agile. He followed Colonel Porter along the catwalks, among the fuel tanks, and then up the many ladders to the observer’s platform, where they lifted the trap and stepped out on the very top of the ship.
“This dock is certainly a big place,” said Mr. Hammond, staring about.
“Yes,” replied Colonel Porter. “It is hard to realize its size. You can give its footage, twelve hundred feet long, three hundred and twenty-five feet wide, and two hundred and four feet high, but that doesn’t convey much. But pause to remember that if it was placed in front of the national Capitol at Washington, it would hide the entire building except a little bit of the spire. Or you could lay the Woolworth building and Washington monument down in it, side by side, and almost lose them. Or you could stage ten full-sized football games in it at the same time, and still have plenty of room to spare.”
They made their way down through the hull to the gondola, where workmen were now busy putting on electric light fixtures, and went back to Colonel Porter’s office.
