These were sixty-ton amphibious cargo carriers, almost wide enough to touch both curbs of a normal street. Their wheels stood ten feet high.
Bud set the Sky Queen down to a point about five feet above one of the tremendous wheeled boats. The rocket section was lowered into the bare with a single motion and covered with a tarpaulin.
Tom and Mr. Swift, hats pulled down, climbed
OPERATION SHUTTLE 139
onto the operator’s seat next to the driver. The monster marine truck rolled toward the bay.
The bare continued along the road for a mile out to the ocean beach. Mr.
Swift saw, to his surprise, that several Navy enlisted men and officers were grouped on the shore. Some of them climbed onto the vehicle before its square prow pushed into the bay. The craft carried its load with ease, picking up speed as it moved away from land.
The men introduced themselves and one of the officers said to Mr. Swift, “Pretty neat strategy your boy’s pulling off here.”
Mr. Swift smiled. “Yes, it is!”
About half a mile dead ahead was a brightly lighted Navy auxiliary ship lying at anchor. Great clusters of cargo lights hung about the booms, casting reflections out across the waves.
“What’s going on here, Tom?” Mr. Swift whispered, as the Navy men left the bare to climb aboard the big ship.
“The ship is just a ruse,” Tom replied. “We’re not delivering anything to her.
This is an old Navy trick. Empty bares have been running out to the ship since eleven o’clock last night.”
The lights on the ship were suddenly dimmed. The bare slid past it in the darkness and headed for Fearing Island. On the shore of the island metal tracks had been put down to keep the carrier from becoming mired. When the bare reached land, the giant tires rolled onto the tracks and the heavily weighted craft lumbered ashore.
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