Читать книгу Tom Slade on a Transport - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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Tom was greatly excited by his discovery. As he hurried to the office he opened the envelopes and what he found was not of a nature to modify his excitement. Here was German propaganda work with a vengeance. He felt that he had plunged into the very heart of the Teuton spy system. Evidently the recipient of these documents had considered them too precious to destroy and too dangerous to carry.

“He might still think of a way to get them, maybe,” thought Tom.

There was a paper containing a list of all the American cantonments and opposite each camp several names of individuals. Tom thought these might be spies in Uncle Sam’s uniform. There was some correspondence about smuggling dental rubber out of the United States to make gas masks in Germany. There were requests for money. There was one letter giving information, in considerable detail, about aeroplane manufacture.

Another letter in the same handwriting interested Tom particularly, because of his interest in gas engines—the result of his many tussles with the obstreperous motor of the troop’s cabin launch, Good Turn. Skimming hastily over some matter about the receipt of money through some intermediary, his interest was riveted by the following:

“… I told you about having plans of high pressure motor. That’s for battle planes at high altitudes. I’ve got the drawings of the other now—the low pressure one I told you about at S——‘s. That’s for seaplanes, submarine spotting, and all that. Develops 400 H.P. They’re not putting those in the planes that are going over now, but all planes going over next year will have them. B—— told me what you said about me going across, but that’s the only reason I suggested it—because the information won’t be of any particular use to them after they bring down a plane. They’ll see the whole thing before their eyes then. But suit yourself. There’s a lot of new wrinkles on this motor. I’ll tell you that, but there’s no use telling you about it when you don’t know a gas engine from a meat-chopper.

“Sure, I could tend to the other matter too—it’s the same idea as a periscope. That’s a cinch. I knew a chap worked on the Christopher Colon. She used to run to Central America. Maybe I could swing it that way. Anyway, I’ll see you.

“If you have to leave in a hurry, leave money and any directions at S——‘s.

“I’m going to be laid off here, anyway, on account of my eardrums.

“Hope B—— will give you this all right. Guess that’s all now.”

Tom read this twice and out of its scrappiness and incompleteness he gathered this much! that somebody who was about to be dismissed from an aeroplane factory for the very usual reason that he could not stand the terrific noise, had succeeded in either making or procuring plans of Uncle Sam’s new aeroplane engine, the Liberty Motor.

He understood the letter to mean that it was very important that these drawings reach Germany before the motors were in service, since then it would be too late for the Germans to avail themselves of “Yankee ingenuity,” and also since they would in all probability succeed in capturing one of the planes.

He gathered further that the sender of the letter was prepared to go himself with these plans, working his way on an American ship, and to do something else (doubtless of a diabolical character) on the way. The phrase “same idea as a periscope” puzzled him. It appeared, also, that the sender of the letter, whoever he was and wherever he was (for no place or date or signature was indicated and the envelopes were not the original ones) had not sent his communications direct to this alien grocer, but to someone else who had delivered them to Schmitt.

“It isn’t anything for me to be mixed up in, anyway,” Tom thought. He was almost afraid to carry papers of such sinister purport with him and he quickened his steps in order that he might turn them over to Mr. Burton, the manager of Temple Camp office.

But when he reached the office he did not carry out this intention, for there was waiting for him a letter which upset all his plans and made him forget for the time being these sinister papers. It took him back with a rush to his experiences on shipboard and he read it with a smile on his lips.

“Dear Tommy—I don’t know whether this letter will ever reach you, for, for all I know, you’re in Davy Jones’s locker. Even my memo of your address got pretty well soaked in the ocean and all I’m dead sure of is that you live in North America somewhere near a bridge.”

Tom turned the sheet to look at the signature but he knew already that the letter was from his erstwhile friend, Mr. Carleton Conne.

“You’ll remember that I promised to get you a job working for Uncle Sam. That job is yours if you’re alive to take it. It’ll bring you so near the war, if that’s what you want, that you couldn’t stick a piece of tissue paper between.

“If you get this all right and are still keen to work in transport service, there won’t be any difficulty on account of the experience you’ve had.

“Drop in to see me Saturday afternoon, room 509, Federal Building, New York, if you’re interested.

“Best wishes to you.

“Carleton Conne.”

So Mr. Conne was alive and had not forgotten him. Tom wished that the letter had told something about the detective’s rescue and the fate of the spy, but he realized that Secret Service agents could hardly be expected to dwell on their adventures to “ship’s boy” acquaintances, and was it not enough that Mr. Conne remembered him at all, and his wish to serve on an army transport?

He took the letter into the private office to show it to Mr. Burton, resolved now that he would say nothing about his discovery in Schmitt’s cellar, for surely Mr. Conne would be the proper one to give the papers to.

“You remember,” he began, “that I said if I ever heard from Mr. Conne and he offered me a job, I’d like to go. And you said it would be all right.”

Mr. Burton nodded. “And the expected—or the unexpected—has happened,” he added, smiling, as he handed Mr. Conne’s letter back to Tom.

“It’ll be all right, won’t it?” Tom asked.

“I suppose it will have to be, Tom,” Mr. Burton said pleasantly. “That was our understanding, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir—but I’m sorry—kind of.”

“I’m sorry, kind of, too; but I suppose there’s no help for it. Some boys,” he added, as he toyed with a paperweight, “seem to be born to work in offices, and some to wander over the face of the earth. I would be the last to discourage you from entering war service in whatever form it might be. But I’m afraid you’d go anyway, Tom, war or no war. The world isn’t big enough for some people. They’re born that way. I’m afraid you’re one of them. It’s surprising how unimportant money is in traveling if one has the wanderlust. It’ll be all right,” he concluded with a pleasant but kind of rueful smile. He understood Tom Slade thoroughly.

“That’s another thing I was thinking about, too,” said Tom. “Pretty soon I’ll be eighteen and then I want to enlist. If I enlist in this country I’ll have to spend a whole lot of time in camp, and maybe in the end I wouldn’t get sent to the firing line at all. There’s lots of ’em won’t even get across. If they find you’ve got good handwriting or maybe some little thing like that, they’ll keep you here driving an army wagon or something. If I go on a transport I can give it up at either port. It’s mostly going over that the fellers are kept busy anyway; coming back they don’t need them. I found that out before. They’ll give you a release there if you want to join the army. So if I keep going back and forth till my birthday, then maybe I could hike it through France and join Pershing’s army. I’d rather be trained over there, ’cause then I’m nearer the front. You don’t think that’s sort of cheating the government, do you?” he added.

Mr. Burton laughed. “I don’t think the government will object to that sort of cheating,” he said.

“I read about a feller that joined in France, so I know you can do it. You see, it cuts out a lot of red tape, and I’d kind of like hiking it alone—ever since I was a scout I’ve felt that way.”

“Once a scout, always a scout,” smiled Mr. Burton, using a phrase of which he was very fond and which Tom had learned from him; “and it wouldn’t be Tom Slade if he didn’t go about things in a way of his own, eh, Tom? Well, good luck to you.”

Tom went out and in his exuberance he showed Mr. Conne’s letter to Margaret Ellison, who also worked in Temple Camp office.

“It’s splendid,” she said, “and as soon as you know you’re going I’m going to hang a service flag in the window.”

“You can’t hang out a service flag for a feller that’s working on a transport,” Tom said. “He isn’t in regular military service. When I’m enlisted I’ll let you know.”

“You must be sure to write.”

Tom promised and was delighted. So great was his elation, indeed, that on his way home to his room that evening he went through Terrace Avenue again, to see how the Red Cross women were getting on in their new quarters.

Mary Temple received him in a regular nurse’s costume, which made Tom almost wish that he were lying wounded on some battle-field. She was delighted at his good news, and, “Oh, we had such a funny man here just after you left,” she said. “Mother thinks he must have been insane. He said he came to read the gas-meter, so I took him down into the cellar and the gas-meter had been taken away. Wouldn’t you think the gas company would have known that? Then he said he would stay in the cellar and inspect the pipes.”

“Did you let him?” Tom asked.

“I certainly did not! With all our stuff down there? When he saw I intended to stay down as long as he did, he went right up. Do you think he wanted to steal some of our membership buttons?”

Tom shrugged his shoulders thoughtfully. He was glad the next day was Saturday.