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TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS


[Illustration: TOM DOWNED THE ENEMY FLYER.]


TOM SLADE WITH THE FLYING CORPS

A Campfire Tale

by

PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH

Author of
TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT, TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE
CAMP, TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER, TOM
SLADE WITH THE COLORS, ETC.

Illustrated by R. Emmett Owen

Published with the approval of
The Boy Scouts of America






Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers    :  :    New York

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1919, by
Grosset & Dunlap

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 TO THE
                               T.S.O.T.Z.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                  PART ONE—THE SECRET OF THE SCUPPERS




                               CHAPTER I


      Tells briefly of the extraordinary episode which ended
      his service in the Flying Corps, and gives also a
      glimpse of his adventurous career.

The reports in the American newspapers of the loss of Tom Slade,
aviator, were read by his many admirers and friends with a sense of
shock and with feelings of personal bereavement.

Notwithstanding that his former comrades on this side of the water had
not seen him for more than two years and knew that the character of his
service, as well as his temperament, would be sure to take him where
danger was greatest, the accounts of his dramatic end, set forth in cold
type, seemed hardly believable.

It is the one familiar name in the casualty lists which brings the war
home to one more forcibly than does the loss of a whole division.

But for all that, we received the news pretty calmly and made little
fuss until after the great metropolitan dailies had mentioned poor Tom
as a national hero. Then we sat up and took notice. When the _Tribune_
phoned to our local Scout Council for a photograph of Tom (“any photo
would do,” they said) our own _Bulletin_ published an editorial which
would have made poor Tom ashamed to walk down Main Street. And when the
_Times_ blazoned forth the heading,

                        JERSEY FLIER DIES A HERO

our _Bulletin_ got another photo from Tom’s scout patrol and printed it
on the front page. Then the Girls’ Patriotic League got hold of this
picture and had it enlarged, and it was displayed for a week or more in
the window of Blanchard’s Drug Store.

All we needed was a little nudge from New York and then we paid our
tribute proudly and handsomely.

But there was one quarter where pride was lost in a sense of personal
sorrow and bereavement, and that was in the local scout troop, of which
Tom had been a member and a moving spirit.

I remember very well meeting Roy Blakeley as I stepped off the train
that afternoon and, knowing him for the light-hearted youngster that he
was, his condition seemed pitiable.

“Have you got a New York paper?” he asked me. “Is it true?”

He had evidently been waiting for the evening papers which came down on
the train that I usually take, and as he stood there, trim and spruce in
his scout regalia, his hat on the back of his head as usual, and craning
his neck for a glimpse of the paper even before I unfolded it, his
evident grief went to my heart.

“Yes, it’s true, I’m afraid,” I said.

“You remember about Quentin Roosevelt,” he almost pleaded. “They thought
for a while _he_ was saved—taken prisoner——”

“Yes, that hope was justified, Roy,” I told him, “because all that was
known for a few days was that he had been in combat with a Hun plane and
had not returned. This is different. You’ve got to face the fact and not
flinch, just the same as Tom faced the enemy—without flinching.”

I opened the paper and we stood there together in a little recess of the
Bridgeboro Station, and while I read the article aloud Roy’s eyes were
riveted upon it, as if he almost doubted the truth of my words. In the
Temple Camp office in the big bank building across the street hung a
service flag with a single star upon it. It was there that Tom Slade had
been employed. I noticed how Roy’s eyes wandered over to it every few
seconds as if that, since it still hung there, somehow proved the
falsity of the published reports.

                     JERSEY BOY’S DRAMATIC END

                THOMAS SLADE OF THE FLYING CORPS
                PLUNGED THREE THOUSAND FEET TO DEATH
                WHILE PURSUING BOCHE PLANE

               HEROIC TRIUMPH PRECEDES HIS TRAGIC END

          Wreaks Vengeance in the Clouds Before He Falls.
          Vow to Kill Hun Who Bombed American Hospital
          Kept in Thrilling Victory in the Skies

    The War Department confirmed today the Associated Press
    report of the loss of Thomas Slade, aviator, in the fighting
    west of Rheims, while in pursuit of an enemy plane.
    Slade, who was known among his comrades as “Thatchy,” was
    exceptionally popular and his tragic fate has cast a feeling
    of gloom throughout the section where he had been lately
    stationed. His superiors in the Rheims section had no
    hesitancy in describing his last exploit as unquestionably
    showing skill and daring of the first order, and his loss
    will be keenly felt in the service.

    Further details of Slade’s end are awaited, but it is feared
    that little more than the bare facts of this sensational
    climax of his career will be forthcoming. A strong touch of
    human interest characterizes his final part in the war by
    reason of an announcement the youthful flier is said to have
    made to some of his comrades. When the Germans crossed the
    Marne in their recent advance a Boche machine dropped bombs
    upon a Red Cross hospital near Epernay, killing two women
    nurses. Slade himself was a patient in the hospital at the
    time, recovering from a slight wound he had received near La
    Chapelle. He was on the veranda of the little hospital at
    about dawn, following his restless habit of wandering
    about within the prescribed limits, and chafing under a
    convalescence which he believed was needlessly keeping him
    from service. He saw the Boche plane drop the bombs in the
    first light of dawn and watched it escape while two French
    fliers pursued it. One of the nurses, a French girl, had
    cared for the young American, and his comrades in the
    hospital are said to have recalled that his sorrow and anger
    were so great that he expressed the resolve to find and kill
    this Hun messenger of frightfulness if he lost his own life
    in doing so.

    This resolve was kept in the dramatic combat which ended
    Slade’s career.

    By what means he identified the enemy machine is not known,
    but he is known to have pursued it till both machines
    disappeared in the clouds over the enemy lines. The
    character of the tragic conflict which took place in the
    concealment of that dizzy height can only be conjectured,
    but the enemy plane was seen to fall, and the strong wind
    which had blown up in the west brought it into the little
    village of La Toi, just within the Allied lines. The machine
    was a total wreck and though its pilot was quite dead and
    frightfully mangled from his tremendous fall, it was evident
    from a wound on his forehead that he had paid the penalty of
    his cowardly and despicable act before he fell less than
    five minutes after his fall Slade’s machine was seen to
    descend, first coasting, then fluttering as if without
    control, and when still more than a thousand feet in the air
    it plunged headlong to the ground. Its occupant was seen
    falling separately and both are known to have struck upon
    the rocky hillside where the Germans made such stubborn
    resistance in the fighting of last Tuesday. It is a matter
    of deep regret that the body of the gallant young American,
    crushed and mangled as it must have been, did not fall
    within the American lines.

“He might have——” Roy began in a kind of daze.

“No, my boy,” I told him, “we may as well face the fact. No man in the
history of this world ever fell a thousand feet without having his life
crushed out. Even if he landed on a haystack instead of a jumble of
rocks, it would have killed him. Look here——”

I felt as if I were myself guilty of some form of brutal frightfulness
as I pointed to the little supplementary notice upon the substance of
which I supposed that the government had based its official confirmation
of Tom’s death.

    An official report to Washington states that a German
    aviator, flying over the American lines, dropped the cap
    which Slade had worn into an American camp. It contained the
    metal identification disk which the young flier had worn on
    a cord around his neck, and a small badge linked with it
    which is thought to signify some honor greatly prized in the
    ranks of the Boy Scouts of America. With these trinkets was
    a note in German saying that young Slade had been buried in
    the village of Pevy and that a cross with his name upon it
    had been placed over his grave.

I think neither of us spoke for fully a minute. I am sure that Roy could
not have trusted himself to speak.

“So you see,” I finally said, “that even the Huns recognized his
gallantry and his heroism.”

“They _had_ to,” said Roy with a kind of pitiful defiance.

We strolled up the hill, neither of us speaking.

“You know what badge it was, don’t you?” he asked.

His earnest question and the evident struggle he was having with himself
gave me a momentary pang of regret, almost of shame, that I had never
taken a very lively interest in the Scouts and especially in this one
who had died a hero.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t, Roy,” I confessed.

“It was the Scouts’ Gold Cross,” he said. “It means he risked his life
to save a fellow when he was a scout. . . It was a little sick fellow
that he saved.”

“His wearing it shows how he always remembered the Scouts, doesn’t it?”
I observed weakly, for I hardly knew what to say.

“None of the people here really knew him,” he said, ignoring this
remark.

“He was probably of a more retiring nature than you, Roy,” I said. But
the pleasantry was lost upon him.

We strolled on up the hill in silence and stood for a moment chatting in
front of his home, which is one of our show places here in Bridgeboro.

“Mr. Ellsworth found him down in Barrel Alley,” Roy said; “he was a
hoodlum. After he got to be a scout he went ahead of us all. Even Mr.
Temple had to admit it—and you know how kind of grouchy—as you might
say—Mr. Temple is sometimes.”

I nodded, smiling.

In a general way, I did know the story of how John Temple had become
interested in the Scouts through the reclamation by them of this hapless
orphan, and before I left for France myself (which was on the following
Friday), I learned more of the young hero’s history. I have since had
reason to regret that I did not look more carefully at the several
pictures of the boy which were displayed in Bridgeboro after the news of
his death reached us. They were pictures of a Boy Scout, to be sure, and
two years makes such a difference in a boy’s appearance that I dare say
I would not have recognized the aviator from the stolid-faced,
khaki-clad youngster whose photo our local paper reproduced with such
vaunting pride.

It was Mr. Ellsworth, that untiring scoutmaster, who told me the story
of Tom as far as he knew it. He said that as Tom had been the best
all-around hoodlum in town, so he had become the best all-around scout;
that it was attributable directly to Tom’s wonderful reformation that
Mr. Temple had been drawn, neck and shoulders, as he said, into the
scouting movement and had founded and endowed Temple Camp in the
Catskills, which I believe has come to be regarded as one of the finest
scout camps in the country.

He told me how Tom had left the Scouts to work on a transport; how his
ship had been torpedoed and he had been taken aboard a German submarine
and incarcerated in a German prison camp. From that point information
about him was scanty and contradictory. He had escaped (so Mr. Ellsworth
had heard) from the prison camp and somehow had made his way to France
where he was next heard from as a motorcycle dispatch rider.

How and when he had got into the Flying Corps Mr. Ellsworth did not
know, for he had been heard of as an aviator only a month or two prior
to the shocking news of his heroic end.

For a week or two after the news came, the name of this heroic young
scout was on every lip, but I must confess that when I went away the
thought which lingered with me most persistently was not so much that of
the young fellow whose career had been so varied and remarkable but of
that comrade of his scouting days who took the young aviator’s loss home
to himself with such a sense of personal bereavement. Stouthearted
champion as he was of his friend’s prowess, I verily believe that the
heart which beat under that trim scout regalia was still buoyed up with
a forlorn hope that some belated report might yet prove the government’s
authenticated announcement to be false. There was a kind of heroism in
this challenge to careful and methodical old Uncle Sam which I am afraid
appealed to me more even than did Tom’s exploits and noble sacrifice,
and I felt that if I could only do the impossible and assure Roy that
his friend still lived and would come home, it would afford me a keener
joy than I had ever known.

I cannot for the life of me say what the reason was for Roy’s making a
particular confidante and companion of me during the few days that I
remained in Bridgeboro. Perhaps his memory of our stroll up the hill
together the day the sad news reached town, and the fellowship of
sympathy which then sprang up between us, made him regard me as in some
special way his friend.

However it was, on the morning that I left home for the long journey
which was to mean so much to us both, I found Roy swinging his legs from
the railing of my porch waiting, so he explained, to help carry my
luggage down to the station. In the stressful days to follow I always
remembered him as he looked then—a roguish smile upon his face which had
been so clouded with his brave grief, his scout hat on the back of his
curly head and the scarf he always wore hanging loosely around his neck.
I was quite taken aback by this undeserved attention.

“You said you didn’t know much about the Scouts,” he reminded me. “One
thing about them is that a scout has to do a good turn every day, and I
just happened to think this would be a good one.

“I hope I may be able to return it some day,” I said, quite overwhelmed.

“Then I’d only have to do another one,” he answered briskly. “You’d only
make matters worse.”

“I see,” I laughed, letting him take one of my grips.

So we went down the hill together and I was glad to see that his
accustomed buoyancy was gaining the upper hand at last. We did not speak
of Tom until the train had actually come to a stop and he handed me my
grip.

“As long as you’re going over there,” he said, rather hesitatingly,
“maybe you’ll hear more about Tom—how he died, I mean.”

“France is a big place, Roy,” I warned him, “but if I can get any
details be sure I’ll remember them to tell you; I’ll remember that I owe
you a good turn,” I added.

Thus we parted. And I am afraid, as I said before, that I thought more
about Roy on the way over than I did about his dead hero pal. As the
great ship made her perilous way in silence and darkness through the
danger zone, I thought of the trim figure which had waited for the
evening papers at the station on that sorrowful day, of the service flag
with its single star hanging in the window across the street, and of
this same trim figure, with its brown face and clear eyes and curly
hair, swinging its legs from the railing of my porch, waiting to do me a
good turn.

I am afraid that I did not think so much about that lonely, rough-made
grave in the little village of Pevy in devastated, bleeding France.




                               CHAPTER II


      Tells how I chanced to learn something of Slade’s
      career and of the circumstance which was destined to
      send me out of France.

My own adventures as a correspondent on the west front would seem tame
enough in comparison with the exploits which I purpose to relate, and I
will not weary you with a rehearsal of my experiences and observations,
especially since the account of these has appeared from day to day in
two of our American newspapers.

I am afraid that amid the roar of battle and with the continual sight of
death and bloodshed all about me I gave little thought to the young
fellow from my home town in far-off America who had given his life for
the great cause. What had seemed glorious and heroic in Bridgeboro was
divested of much of its dramatic and noble quality by the sights which I
beheld each day. I was present when Arliss, that daring young ace, fell
to his death, and I knew, or at least I thought at the time, that no
career could have been more adventurous than his and no death so
splendid.

I did not, however, forget to make inquiries in responsible quarters
about the death of Tom Slade and being for a time in the neighborhood of
his final exploit, I was able to gather a few details which amplified
and unquestionably confirmed the accounts of his career and death as
published in America.

It was not until long afterward that I learned from a very responsible
source how Slade had got into the Flying Corps, a matter which
interested me greatly, since the last his friends in America had heard
of him before the news of his death came, he had been in the Motorcycle
Service. This and much other astonishing information I received during
my journey in the Alps of which you shall hear the true account. I say
_true account_ because it has been published in connection with that
frightful journey that I assisted a deserter, a report which has not one
word of truth in it.

I purpose, as well as I may, to recount this whole extraordinary
business exactly as it unfolded itself to me, rather than to attempt a
consecutively ordered narrative; and whatever it may lose in the way of
skilfull story-writing, it will at least have the solid advantage of
being the plain truth, plainly told. I am quite certain that no one
except myself is in a position to tell of this journey and I am equally
certain that I would rather die tomorrow than go through again the
unspeakable horrors which I experienced.

So much for myself, and I will pick out of all this jumble of amazing
happenings with their tragic climax, the episode of my stay in the
hospital near Epernay as being a convenient and appropriate
starting-point for my tale.

This hospital, as it turned out, was the one where Tom had spent upwards
of a month recovering (according to the American newspapers) from a
“slight wound.” The “slight wound,” as I learned, had all but killed
him. A cruel wound in the head it was, received in an exploit which was
only less extraordinary than the one which shortly afterward put an end
to his career.

I mean to tell you of this incident as I learned it from the surgeons
and nurses, and also of one or two still earlier adventures of the young
flyer which I heard of while I was under treatment.

But first I must tell you of an experience of my own which put me in the
way of learning these things and laid the foundation, as I might say,
for my learning other things.

I was gassed. I have read various accounts of how people act and feel
when they are gassed and I have seen an actor in the movies demonstrate
these agonies by many graceful contortions, but the only thing that I
can remember about the actual occurrence was that my head felt just as
one’s foot feels when it is “asleep.” I remember trying to shake my
head, just as one shakes his foot.

I suppose I was not gassed very badly or I would not be here now. In the
days of my suffering I was told that I had only myself to blame which,
of course, was a great consolation to me. I do not know what became of
my mask, but I still have my fountain pen and I should like to show it
to you. The silver filigree work which covers it is changed to a rich
green color, making the whole thing very beautiful and altogether
unique. Fritzie did this with his abominable gas. I do not know what
kind of gas it was, but I treasure my pen as being a sample of clever
artcraft work, made by the Germans—though not made in Germany.




                              CHAPTER III


      Tells how I looked at the Scuppers through a field
      glass, and of how I resolved on a very hazardous
      enterprise.

I must tell you in some detail of this experience of my own since, as I
said, the whole story hangs upon it.

You will understand that at the time of Tom’s tragic exploit the big
bulge in the straining line which the Germans had made in their drive
toward the Marne, and which was known as the Marne salient, had been
entirely wiped out by the allied forces. The line ran almost straight
between Soissons and Rheims with the little village of Pevy, where the
Germans had erected the cross, lying a short distance within the enemy
lines. So the line remained for some time while Marshal Foch was
pressing forward elsewhere.

My first experience of actual warfare was when I joined the boys near
Jonchery, prepared to accompany them northward toward the Aisne River.
There was not much fighting in that advance. The Germans picked up like
a lot of squatters and retreated so fast that twice we lost touch with
them altogether, but we had the heroic satisfaction of capturing no end
of deserted baggage. I think I never saw so many musical instruments and
parrots as they left behind, and, indeed, the love of pets and music
which those wretches showed has always been a matter of marvel to me.
One of these squawking birds, I remember, was flapping its wings, all
bewildered, upon the top of a post, to which (I was told) several
British Tommies had been tied and tortured, and shrieking, “Cut their
throats, cut their throats!” at the top of its expressionless voice.
They are strange people who are so gentle and patient that they can
teach these birds as no others can and then can play a tune on the
mandolin and then torture a man to death.

After several days of this inglorious marathon race, the Germans made a
stand upon the summit of a hill. I understood that our immediate
objective was Pevy, which I remembered as the village where Tom’s grave
was, and it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to know that this place
must presently fall to our troops and that the grave would be at least
on friendly soil.

But Pevy was not to be so easily taken. The hill which confronted us
descended in an almost sheer precipice upon the near side and I think I
never saw such a rocky chaos as it presented.

My friend, Lieutenant Wells, let me view it through his field glass, and
a more depressing, bleak and desolate place I never beheld—a jungle of
gray boulders it was, and naked earth, as if the hill had been split
open like an apple and one-half taken away.

“That’s where Fritzie mowed us down a while ago, when he was headed for
the Marne,” said the lieutenant.

“You mean from the summit?” I asked.

“Yes, our boys tried to scale that stone-yard and stop the advance. We
outnumbered them three to one just there, but they held out. Some of us
got on top, but it was no use.”

I don’t know what put it into my head unless it was the knowledge that
this place was near upon Pevy and west of Rheims, but it occurred to me
that perhaps this was the very “rocky hillside” which the American
newspaper had mentioned as the place where Tom fell. I remembered the
phrase “in the fighting west of Rheims,” and also “the rocky hillside
where the Germans put up such a stubborn resistance.”

“Do you suppose that is where Slade, the aviator, fell?” I asked.

“Thatchy?” he queried. “Yes, it is. Just a little to the left,” he
added, moving the glass for me. “Do you see two big rocks with points?
One a little higher than the others?”

Our detachment had gone on along the road which flanked the hill, for,
of course, there was no intention of surmounting the forbidding place,
and it was important that we pass out of range of it before the enemy
gain the vantage point of the summit.

For half a minute I looked upon the very spot where Slade had fallen—two
big, gray rocks somewhat more than midway up that cheerless cliff and I
thought of that traveller described in a poem of Scott’s, who died in
some remote, forlorn spot—unfriended and alone. The two rocks formed a
sort of gutter on the precipitous hill, and a quantity of descending
debris had fallen against them, forming a chaotic mass there.

“I suppose he rolled down against those and caught there,” I said, still
looking at the place through the glass.

“Guess so,” said the lieutenant, half interested. “They call them the
Scuppers. I heard a couple of Signal Corps men saying that the Huns must
have found Slade in the Scuppers—God-forsaken looking place, huh?”

I could not speak just then. Of all the lonesome places to die, that
gray, cold, forsaken waste seemed the most terrible—a spot more barren
and heartless than the sea, and ugly with a kind of brutal ugliness. And
that, I reflected, was where Tom Slade of my own home town in far-off
America fell to his heroic death. I wondered how long he had lain there
and suffered beyond the help of surgeons and nurses.

“He’s buried in Pevy,” I said; “they had the decency to take him there
and give him a Christian grave.”

The lieutenant had already taken his glass from me and was moving away.
He was not greatly interested in Tom Slade.

“Do you think,” I said, “that if I climbed up there and looked at the
place, I could manage to get the rest of the way to the summit and join
the detachment before they reach Pevy? I want to be in at the finish.”

“You might do it in a newspaper or in the movies,” he said, for he would
never let me forget that I was a fountain-pen warrior.

“Please remember,” said I (for I was getting a little weary of such
talk), “that the correspondents have done great work in this war. As for
the movies, I’ll show you that I am as good as Douglas Fairbanks
himself, for I am going to climb——”

“Scale that dizzy height, you mean,” he taunted; “that’ll sound good in
a special article.”

“Indeed!” said I. “Well, then, I am going to ‘scale that dizzy height’
and see where Tom Slade fell, for he came from the little town in Jersey
where I belong.”

“You’ll be killed by the Germans,” said he.

“You forget I have my trusty fountain pen with me,” I replied,
scathingly.

He tried to dissuade me, saying that when I reached the summit I was
just as likely to fall in with the enemy as with our own men and that
unless I expected to defeat them single-handed I had better follow the
route prescribed by the officers. But I was a free agent in such
matters; no charge of desertion or disobedience could be laid against
me, and I was resolved that come what might I would take some memento
from that lonely spot back to my young friend in America.

Little I thought at the time what that memento would be.




                               CHAPTER IV


      Tells of how I visited the Scuppers, and of the first
      of two discoveries which I made there.

You are to understand that the road which we had followed from Jonchery
appeared from a distance to run straight into this precipitous jungle of
rock and broken earth, but a short way from the base it verged to the
westward, running through a dense wood and, as our officers were well
aware, led up the easy west slope of the hill.

It was thought unlikely that the slight advantage which their precedence
up this hill might give them would tempt the Germans to pause and give
battle there, for they were running as suburbanites run to catch their
trains. But if they should emerge upon the top of this towering cliff
before our boys had verged out of range of it into the woods there might
be an unhappy story to tell. I did not realize it while I was tramping
along rather faster than is my wont, but I knew afterward that this
peril had been averted by a pretty narrow calculation on the part of our
officers and some pretty good sprinting of the men.

As it turned out, our detachment was well out of range of the height and
pushing rapidly westward through the protecting woods when I found
myself standing alone in the shadow of the rock-ribbed ascent. A better
target one could scarcely imagine, and I reflected on the danger in
which I was placing myself for no better reason than a sentimental,
perhaps a sort of morbid, desire to see the spot where Tom Slade had
fallen.

One advantage I had, and that was the declining sun which flickered the
rocks with glints of changing light, and I consoled myself with the
thought that it would soon be dusk.

Between myself and the cliff lay an expanse of marshland a quarter of a
mile or so in width, I should say, and into this I plunged, wallowing
through the mushy undergrowth and stumbling the more because I must keep
my eyes fixed upon the summit of the hill.

No sign of life was there upon that frowning cliff, only the little
crimson glints, coming and going as the light failed.

Once and again I fancied these to be soldiers, and a particularly steady
glare in what seemed to be a clump of foliage troubled me with
misgivings lest the light might be reflected from the steel of a
machine-gun.

I had thought of carrying a large bunch of swamp growth by way of
camouflaging myself, but it was quite difficult enough to move through
the swamp without that handicap. Once I got a footing upon something
hard and the pressure of my weight sent the other end of it bobbing up
out of the mushy scum, and I was startled to see a skeleton leg with a
few shreds upon it sticking up and hanging over at the knee in a
gruesome manner. A German helmet lay near the skull, which I had trodden
upon. As I plodded on the ghastly thing settled itself again into the
marsh as if it had been prematurely awakened out of a peaceful slumber.

I was pretty thoroughly drenched when I reached the foot of the hill and
it occurred to me that by rolling in the dry earth there I might acquire
an appearance conforming to the hue and character of my surroundings.
That done, I began my climb.

The ascent was not quite as precipitous as it had looked from a
distance, but it was all up and down, the loose earth sliding so in
places that I kept slipping back and seemed to make no more progress
than a horse on a treadmill. Moreover, there was great danger from
descending stones in these places, for the whole land above seemed in
process of erosion and one big rock, in the shelter of which I paused to
rest, went tumbling away below me leaving me sprawling.

At last, after fifteen or twenty minutes of this strenuous,
lose-and-gain progress, I reached the little area of vegetation where
the Scuppers, so-called, were located. Here I had a splendid birds-eye
view of the road over which we had come and the swamp and the adjacent
woods around the west slope of the hill. The ascent, I saw, must be very
gradual there, and I realized what I had not realized before, that if
our boys were so fortunate as to catch the enemy between themselves and
this cliff there would be something else besides stones rolling down.
Perhaps that was part of the plan of our officers. They never confided
anything to me.

What I was immediately concerned with was the Scuppers themselves. The
little oasis of a few square yards in which I stood consisted of a
jumble of rock with sparse vegetation poking out between, and a
miscellaneous collection of nature’s odds and ends which had struck up a
sort of fraternity here like outcasts in some unmolested haunt. Trees
which had broken away from above grew at crazy angles, their roots
having taken precarious hold upon the soil, and the whole conglomerate
mass was held by the two great jagged rocks known as the Scuppers. These
rocks, as I could see now, must have been very deeply imbedded and the
comparatively small portion of them which protruded from the earth
formed a continuous ledge or gutter for some yards, against which all of
this distorted natural furniture rested. Perhaps some sailor had first
called them the Scuppers, and although on close view they bore no
resemblance to the scuppers of a ship, the name was not inappropriate.

In my picnicking and summer rambles I have visited many places with
darkly suggestive names—Hell’s Kitchens, Devil’s Punch-bowls, and the
like—cosy nooks, as a rule, with nothing more appalling about them than
seductive shade and quiet, but here indeed was a spot after Satan’s own
heart. In one place a great half-exposed root formed a sort of cave, its
drooping tentacles hanging like a bead curtain at the entrance. And the
almost horizontal posture of the tree-trunks and the deformed branches
of foliage made dim recesses and deathlike nooks. Yet the place was
picturesque, too, affording a certain feeling of cosiness and dubious
security, perched as it was midway of that torn, naked ascent.

I had scarcely begun my exploration of this curious island, as it might
be called, when something crunched beneath my foot. It proved to be a
glass disk which I recognized as one of the sort forming the goggles
worn by aviators. Part of the metal frame and some heavy material like
khaki were attached to it, so I concluded that the goggles had formed a
part of the cap (as the newspapers had called it) or, more properly, the
mask, used by the fallen airman.

This small find confirmed my own surmise and the lieutenant’s statement
that this lonesome, uncanny place was indeed the scene of Slade’s tragic
death, and, as I stood there with the fragment in my hand, I thanked
Heaven that our boys were even now on their way to take the village of
Pevy where the poor remains of the dead American lay. I wondered why the
Germans—barbarians that they were—had gone to the trouble and
encountered the perils of recovering his maimed body. There is no
question that Germans have little spasms of humanity, just as the Anglo
Saxons may have spasms of cruelty. And that, I thought, must be the
explanation. They did it without thinking!

But what a thing to do. It must have involved risk and no little
ingenuity to get Slade’s body up that frightful precipice. It puzzled me
to know why they had done it and pretty soon, when I discovered an
explanation, it staggered and amazed me. They had done it because—— Oh,
I would not let myself think of it—it was incredible....

And I thought of Roy Blakeley, Tom’s friend, who had believed in him,
trusted him, worshipped him. How could I go back and tell Roy what I had
found?

But I am running a little ahead of my narrative. It is hard to set this
matter down in orderly fashion. Even now I feel the cold chill of
speechless horror which came over me, in that little dank cave formed by
the tree root as I sat there almost stupefied ten or fifteen minutes
after my second discovery, of which I must now tell you.

Even now, whenever I smell fresh earth, it takes me back to that dim,
ghastly spot and renews the feeling of unutterable dismay and sickening
disgust which I felt then.




                               CHAPTER V


      Tells of my second discovery and brings me to the
      point of startling revelations.

This thing which I had inadvertently stepped on had, I suppose, been a
part of the cap, so-called, which the Germans had dropped behind the
allied lines along with Slade’s identification disk and the “small badge
linked with it which was supposed to signify some honor greatly prized
in the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America.” It did not occur to me as
strange that the newspaper had called it a cap when in point of fact it
was one of those goggle masks sometimes worn by airmen.

The discovery of this broken trifle spurred me to further scrutiny of
the place and I groped about in the gathering dusk but without result.
There was no sign to show where the aviator had fallen and had it not
been for the merest chance I should never have made the discovery which,
alas, bore a darker significance than did the innocent little piece of
glass which I had crushed under foot.

I was just about to continue my climb up the hill when I noticed one of
those great birds which are a common and ghoulish sight in the theatre
of war, circling overhead. These sinister creatures will follow a
retreating army for miles, intent and undiscouraged, and apparently
knowing if it is the purpose of that army to make a stand and fight I
have seen them veer away and disappear when some advantageous ground for
fighting has been reached and passed. Near Blanzy, where no one dreamed
that the retreating foe would give battle, a big flock of them hovered
all day waiting for the routed Germans to reach that place and rally on
the high ground. And they did not wait in vain. No military plans or
probabilities escape them.

Well, I was watching this ungainly harbinger of death as it flopped
about, its thin, naked, ugly neck extended in its horrid quest, and
wondering if its presence boded ill for our boys or for the foe, when my
gaze was drawn to a spot among the upper branches of the tree over which
the bird was circling.

This tree, the only one to hold its head up in that desert of
deformities, had probably acted as a check and prop for falling
material. A mass of tangled brush had sprung up about it and many rocks
found a precarious lodgment among its half-exposed roots.

What I noticed in this tree appeared in the dusk to be an area of brown
fungus upon the trunk some twenty feet or more from the ground. I
probably would not have thought twice about it had I not noticed a loose
end of it moving slightly with the breeze, which gave the whole thing an
appearance of not belonging there.

Still, I dare say I should have gone my way without further
investigation except that this loose end, fluttering like a beckoning
signal in that dismal spot, haunted me. I started away and turned back
again. The great bird had gone and not a thing was there moving
overhead—nothing save this little loose, stirring object, whatever it
was, its outline growing dim in the dusk.

Doubtless the mere fact that it moved would have attracted me as I stood
in the deathlike gloom of that chaotic jungle, but even as I watched my
imagination conjured it into a kind of beckoning finger and I
experienced a strange chill, as of apprehension, as it fluttered up
there among the branches.

An impulse came upon me to climb the tree and dispel my vague fancies by
a closer look at this object. It was not without difficulty that I
managed to “shinny” up the trunk, but the lower branches once reached, I
was able to pass easily from one to another until I was on a level with
the brown object.

I had but to touch it to find that it was no fungus growth at all, but
the remnant of a khaki jacket wound so tightly about the trunk that even
on this closer inspection it seemed a very part of the tree. It must
have been wetted and dried again by much rain and sun, for it was stiff
and hard and clung to the bark when I tried to remove it. The part which
blew loose was one of the sleeves and as I pulled this in my effort to
detach the whole, the brittle, rotted fabric tore and came away like
bark. It must have been there for a long time.

At one place, as I passed my hand over it, I encountered a hubble, very
hard, and upon working the jacket loose I found this to be a watch in
the flap pocket.

You are to suppose that this singular find greatly excited and
interested me and it was in a trembling suspense that I carefully
detached and dropped the thing to the ground.

How came it there? How long had it been there? I think no relic of a
human presence in that cheerless, melancholy spot could have affected me
more and started such a train of thoughts as did this rag which a living
person had once worn. As to who had worn it, there seemed but one
answer—it was the jacket of Tom Slade.

And this supposition I was presently to confirm.

But even before I had reached the ground there appeared to my mind’s eye
a picture of the last scene in the venturesome life of the young airman,
here in this cheerless jungle, and I shuddered as I thought of it, and
of the heroic triumph which preceded his hideous end. I made no doubt
that in his frightful fall the jacket had caught upon some sharp branch
of the tree and held him, who shall say for how long, suffering—more
likely dead. And when the inert, mangled form had become extricated and
gone down, this tattered remnant had remained blowing in the wind and
rain, marking the spot where he had fallen, until the beating storms had
plastered it against the trunk, save for the little moving shred which I
had seen. And so the khaki jacket, like everything else which came into
that crazy, derelict community, had become a part of it, seeming, as I
have said, like a bit of brown fungus on that lonely tree....




                               CHAPTER VI


      Tells of the appalling secret which was revealed to me
      in the Scuppers and of my decision with regard to it.

I now approach a point in my story where it is difficult for me to write
calmly, yet I wish to unfold this wretched business to you exactly as it
unfolded itself to me. What I learned that night was all I ever knew
until I knew all, and much was to happen before that time. It is not
easy, sitting here now and with the whole amazing story in mind, to
reproduce my mental state so that you may see and feel exactly as I saw
and felt then.

Reaching the ground, I took the bundle of stiffened shreds and crawled
into the little cave formed by the tree roots, for it was now nearly
dark and I was cautious enough not to turn my flashlight on in the open.

I think I never experienced such a feeling of suspense as when I
hurriedly rummaged the rotted pockets of this bleached rag which had
once been part of the uniform of the boy from my own home town, in
far-off America, Roy Blakeley’s friend, the young hero who had begun as
a Boy Scout and gone to his death in a glorious dramatic triumph. And I
was thrilled as I repeated his name to myself—_Tom Slade_.

In the sickening, earth-smelling dampness of that little grotto I
ransacked the pockets of the tattered garment, my searchlight laid upon
a piece of rotted wood so that its glare was cast upon my work. The
watch I found to be at one end of a coarse, brass, lock-link chain, at
the other end of which was fastened an oilskin wallet with an ingenious
system of folds and interfolds intended to exclude water and dampness.
The chain was long enough so that the watch could rest in the breast and
the wallet in the hip pocket. There was no hip pocket here, of course,
and the wallet I found in the rotted folds of the garment. I think it
must have been plastered fast between the jacket and the tree-trunk.
Probably it had been jerked out of the trousers pocket when the victim
fell from the tree.

Three things about the watch interested but did not surprise me. It had
stopped at twenty minutes after five, presumably the time of Slade’s
fall; it was of American manufacture, and the initials T. S. were
engraved upon the back of it. Here was confirmation, if I needed any, of
the identity of its owner. It was very much the worse for rain and
weather, but these facts were plainly discernible.

The oilskin wallet was of German manufacture, exactly like one which the
boys had taken from a dead Boche and which I had seen and examined. That
wallet of poor dead Fritzie’s had contained a childishly sentimental
letter from Frankfort. This one, as you shall hear, contained documents
of quite a different character.

The first thing I brought forth was the photograph of a girl—a very
pretty girl indeed, if I am any judge. As I looked at it I had a vague
recollection of having seen the girl somewhere—at a patriotic gathering
in Bridgeboro, I thought, or perhaps it was just on Main Street, or in
the library or the post-office. Anyway, she was no French girl and I
could have vowed that I had seen her in Bridgeboro. So here, at least,
was a pretty touch in the harrowing catastrophe. Tom had had a girl—as
every soldier should have.

You will not be impatient if I run over the contents of this wallet with
some particularity. The next thing was half of a half sheet of note
paper, torn from a letter presumably, and with an irrelevant memorandum
written on the other side The letter was from our young lady, I felt
sure, and I thought it rather an ungallant treatment of her missive. The
few sentences on this fragment ran thus. I copy them from the scrap
itself.

    looked about it seemed as if everyone in Bridgeboro was
    there. And of course the Boy Scouts and that excruciating
    imp of a Blakeley boy were on hand—Ruth’s brother, you know.
    Oh, by the way, who do you suppose is in the old place on
    Terrace Avenue? Guess. The Red Cross ladies and I’m working
    with

That was all, but it took me back home to Bridgeboro with a rush! And
here, thought I, with half the world between us, here in this ghostly,
forlorn scene of tragedy, am I reading of that “excruciating imp”—Roy
Blakeley! Of course the Red Cross ladies were plying their needles in a
vacant store on Terrace Avenue—I knew that well enough. But what was the
grand affair at which the whole of Bridgeboro seemed to be present?

Poor Roy, poor Tom, poor girl, all to be stricken in one way or another
because some bloody tyrant thought he owned the earth.

But I found companionship and solace in those few broken sentences and
it was with wistful thoughts of home that I turned the scrap over and
read in another hand:

    See Capt. Pfeifer about list and supplies from Berry-au-Bac.

Captain Pfeiffer! Here was a good old German name for a loyal American
captain—Pfeiffer! The least he could have done would have been to change
it to Fifer. Well, he could kill the Germans with any name, but——

I scrutinized the memorandum a little more intently. _List and supplies
from Berry-au-Bac._ Hmph! Why, Berry-au-Bac was fifteen or twenty miles
within the German lines. At the time of Tom’s last service it must have
been double that. What had Tom Slade to do with lists and supplies from
Berry-au-Bac?

Why, of course, he had descended upon Berry-au-Bac and captured lists
and— No, it was absurd.

Puzzled, I turned the scrap of paper over and found some reassurance in
those cordial, friendly words written in the girl’s hand. No, sir, we do
not turn out spies or traitors in Bridgeboro. How should _I_ know what
that memorandum meant? But if my name were Pfeiffer, I’d change it to
Fifer or Fife, I knew that much. Tom Slade knew his business, I was sure
of that.

So thinking, I unfolded the next paper and found that he knew his
business only too well. Here was a rough map showing every last hospital
and dressing station beyond the American lines in that sector.

Two were crossed off—blown up, I suppose. There were some twenty or more
still to be blown up. Underneath were written these words, as nearly as
I can remember them:

    Report dressing station foot of Fav Hill joined to one on
    top—empty—don’t bother. Ask about supplies from Wangardt.
    Correct list sent to Cap. Dennheimer so I don’t get blame.
    Tell him G station on other list is full.

And so on, and so on—I could not read any more. The name of that
unspeakable wretch, Dennheimer, was quite enough. His deeds of bestial
inhumanity were such as to call down the vengeance of Heaven and damn
him for all eternity. I knew that he had his minions peering out under
their big gas bags and skulking about like the unclean bird I had been
watching, putting the doom of certain death on those already wounded. I
knew that, like that sinister, cowardly bird, he made it his special
function to defile the blue sky, sending his sneaking minions of the air
forth upon their barbarous errands. They did not fight, the gallant
fliers of this command, they skulked and murdered and fled.

And here in my hands, incredible as it seemed, was the last damning
memorial of one of them.

And an American!

With an uncertain hand and a kind of limp disgust, I drew the papers
forth and scanned them one after another. I felt sick, sick with a kind
of nausea of bewilderment and utter despair. For if this were true (and
how could it be otherwise?), then I had no more faith in human nature.

Yes, I had—I had faith in the faith which I knew lived back in
Bridgeboro, and I think I drew a little hope, perhaps still a little
confidence, from the stout heart which would not even believe that
this—this aviator—was dead. Excruciating imp! Hero, I called him, and I
resolved that he should never hear this from me. He believed that the
worst had not happened, loyal, stouthearted friend and champion and
comrade that he was. But death is not the worst.

I need not trouble you with the sordid contents of those other papers;
nor have I them at hand to copy. They were the familiar baggage of a
traitor and a spy, with all the nice details of sneaking ingenuity and
signs of moral turpitude, such as to arouse the wrath of a saint. It
will be enough to tell you that if this creature had lived, the hospital
at Dormans would probably have seen its agonized victims writhing in
flames. And one of our little cemeteries, with its rows of wooden
crosses, was to have been torn with jagged holes—I do not know why.
There was a detailed report for Dennheimer which would have pleased him
had he received it. And Captain Pfeiffer would not have been
disappointed.

I sat there, holding the watch in one hand, the wallet in the other,
jerking the coarse chain as If I would break it asunder, and separate
the American timepiece bearing the initials of an American boy from this
other souvenir of cowardice and treachery. Then I looked again at the
picture of the girl with the clear, honest eyes, and then at her
friendly words about Bridgeboro. And he had torn a piece from that
letter to make a treacherous memorandum. The wretch!

So I sat in the darkness and pondered, noticing a spider which hurried
back and forth in the small glare of my light, and other irrelevant
trifles, as one will do under the stress of shock and sorrow. My head
throbbed and I felt a strange disinclination to move.

Could this thing be? Why, he had vowed to be revenged upon those
wretches! Had the whole business, first and last, been a treacherous
ruse? Had he gained admission to the hospital simply to spy there? Was
the newspaper account all wrong and he, the sneak and traitor, been but
the hero of some misinformed newspaper correspondent? Everything is
green when you look through green spectacles and the only thing I could
be certain of now was the unmistakable meaning of these papers and the
identity of their possessor. Everything else seemed readily susceptible
of a dark and sinister construction.

As I groped in my mind for some saving fact or discrepancy which might
explain, or at least raise a doubt, the thought of one final clinching
circumstance forced itself upon me and I gave up in hopeless despair. I
knew now why the Germans had come here and taken away Slade’s body. It
was not his body they were after, but his papers and for these they had
searched in vain. The decent burial of his poor remains in some less
cheerless spot than here, and the dropping of his American
identification disk and scout badge (which apparently he had continued
to wear) were perhaps the kindly act of Fritz in one of his erratic,
sentimental moods—a fraternal and charitable afterthought.

And this was the secret of the Scuppers—dark and sordid and depressing,
like all else there; and so, I was resolved, it should remain—an
invisible part of that gloomy derelict community, like the very
atmosphere of that grim, cheerless spot to which fate or a merciful
Providence had relegated it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                PART TWO—REMINISCENCES OF SLADE’S CAREER




                                FOREWORD


It is a fact that the career of Slade from the time he became an airman
and even before was one of bravery and patriotism, and his disaffection,
apparently, had come only at the very end of his service. Even then, as
it seemed, he had not gone over to the enemy, but had accepted and
carried out commissions from them while maintaining an appearance of
loyalty. And I marvelled at the prowess and resource which he must have
shown in this hazardous business. No one in all that sector, where he
had come and gone as freely as the birds of the air, had suspected him;
none spoke of him except in praise.

Perhaps the newspaper account which had thrilled us so at home was
somewhat in the nature of a “write-up,” and there were, indeed, several
versions current as to just how Slade had met his death. Most of these
fell a little short in the ingredient of reckless valor, but there was
no question that he had been counted a very daring airman, and I could
multiply instances of praise and expressions of trust and confidence
from his comrades and superiors.

I supposed at the time that money had tempted this brave young fellow to
his moral fall. About all I had ever known of him was that he had been
of a simple mind and very poor. This much I had learned from Roy.

Before I left the Scuppers that night I had a mental tussle over the
question of what I should do with these incriminating papers. If Slade
had been living I should have turned them over to the authorities, but
as it was I could not see that anything was to be gained by their
preservation. They pertained to conditions which no longer existed, they
revealed no facts that were of value now, and I decided to destroy them
then and there—all except the picture of the girl and the scrap of her
letter containing the familiar references to Bridgeboro, for I could not
bring myself to cast those into the flames. Her friendly, companionable
words, though they were not addressed to me, comforted me, nevertheless,
and conjured up thoughts of home. The brief memorandum on the back I
obliterated with my pen. With the other papers I made a little fire in
my cave, believing that I could the better fulfill my promise to Roy if
I put, or tried to put, this horrible sequel of a brave career out of my
mind altogether.

I shall ask you to do the same while I try to give you a sketch of
Slade’s remarkable deeds up to the time he became a patient “recovering
from a slight wound,” in the Epernay Hospital. This tale of his career
is necessarily disjointed and fragmentary, and was intended only for the
perusal of Roy. I began it in the form of letters to him while I was
myself a patient in that same hospital. These letters were never sent
because I feared the censor, who had been dealing rather freely with my
newspaper stuff, and I soon fell into the habit of stringing out a more
orderly narrative.

You will understand, of course, that my chief interest in all these
matters was for Roy Blakeley. _He_ was _my_ hero.

As to who will prove the hero of this whole extraordinary business, that
shall be for you to say.

                  *       *       *       *       *

                        LETTERS TO ROY BLAKELEY

Dear Roy:

I am writing this letter propped up in bed in the little hospital at
Epernay and a young chatterbox of a fellow in the cot adjoining mine
says that my breathing reminds him of a goldfish. I cannot seem to
breathe with my mouth shut, but I tell him that _he_ can’t keep his
mouth shut either and that he has not my good excuse—for I was gassed.

The nurses and patients call him Archie, and he has a bullet which was
lately extracted from his shoulder and which he says he intends to take
home to America for a souvenir. He is wounded slightly otherwise and was
operated upon (had his _retreat_ cut off, he told me) and is in all ways
a most diverting youngster, something like yourself, except that he
rolls his R’s like rapid-fire artillery. He calls the nurses “cross red”
nurses, and talks incessantly.

I became acquainted with him only yesterday and I fancy he will beguile
my convalescence. Seeing him lying with his eyes fixed on the rafters, I
ventured to say, “A penny for your thoughts.”

“What d’you think I am—a slot machine?” he retorted.

“Excuse me,” I said, somewhat taken aback.

“Perrfectly excusable,” he responded cheerily, and added, “Do you see
that place where the rafterrs arre new—with the big irron nails?”

“I see the nails,” said I.

“You can’t drive a nail with a sponge,” he said, “no matter how you soak
it.”

“Perfectly true,” I said, essaying a little pleasantry of my own, “but
what has that got to do with the price of onions?”

He drew his knees up in the bed in a way he has of lying. “That place is
wherre a Gerrman bomb came through,” he said. “I got one of those nails
forr a souveneerr.”

I looked at the spot with more interest. “It killed two of the nurses,
didn’t it?” I asked. “I heard about that. But surely, you couldn’t have
been here then.”

“No, but my pill was—I mean my pal—fellerr by the name of Slade; he
sworre——”

That was as far as he got, for one of the nurses, stepping right in
range of his torrential volley of R’s, began her ministrations,
incidentally telling him for the hundredth time to be quiet so that
other patients might sleep.

You may suppose that I was greatly interested in what he was telling me
and the good old upstate rumble of that word _sworre_ lingered in my
mind, for I had no doubt that he was referring to your friend Tom Slade,
and that a lucky chance (or an unlucky one) had brought me to the very
hospital mentioned in the newspaper account which you and I read
together. Whether Slade was really his “pill” or pal, I cannot say, for
he spoke of everyone as his pal, from General Foch down, but I hope to
talk more with him tomorrow. He has just fallen asleep with the parting
injunction to “wake me earrly, motherr, dearrrr.” And silence reigns
supreme.

This is all I am allowed to write today, but tomorrow I’ll “recount the
adventure,” as you would say, which brought me here.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Dear Roy:

My new acquaintance is out on our little veranda for a sun bath. His
name, they tell me, is Archer—Archibald Archer—and that he has lately
been in the Motorcycle Corps. I wonder if any motorcycle can make more
noise than he!

I came here after taking the village of Pevy—though I did not take it
all by myself. The village sits on high ground a couple of miles beyond
one of the steepest, rockiest hillsides I ever saw—a place where you can
measure real estate with a plumb line. Our boys took the road which
verged around and up the west slope of the hill, as the retreating
Germans had done, while I took the short-cut, or rather climb, up this
precipitous place.

It was thereabouts that Tom Slade fell, a fact that seems to admit of
little doubt, and you must not continue to indulge in any day-dreams as
to his being still alive. I am sure we are both more interested in some
of the things he did while living than in the immediate circumstances of
his death, and in this connection I intend to question my new
acquaintance as soon as I get the chance.

Well, I had a difficult time of it scrambling up that rocky hill and it
was pitch dark when I reached the top. I have made a rough pencil sketch
of the locality which you may be interested in.

I fell in with our detachment about a mile out of Pevy and had a few
hours’ rest until dawn, when we made our advance against the village.
All this has nothing to do with Tom Slade so I won’t burden you with an
account of how the retreating Germans made a stand before the town. But
when we marched in, there was nothing to be found but burned homesteads
and gas-poisoned atmosphere. It was not impossible to breathe in the
open, but in the wrecked and charred buildings the deadly fumes lingered
and I should have had sense enough to keep out of them. One of them, a
makeshift hospital, had not been destroyed and I foolishly entered it.

For a few seconds I beheld a scene which struck horror to my very heart.
They say over here that every American soldier fights with a wrath and
desperation born of some particular discovery or experience of Hun
brutality. One goes forth with the thought of a maimed and tortured
comrade to give him strength; another with the memory of some violated
truce or false and murderous cry of “kamerad!” Well, here was the sight
to arouse in me the hatred of those beasts which I had not sufficiently
felt before.

They had left their own people, _their own sick and wounded_, to suffer
the agonizing death of those deadly gas fumes. If there are any degrees
in loathesomeness, it seemed to me that this was more unspeakable than
was the bombing of an enemy hospital.

I cannot describe what I saw, nor did I see it long. I remember groping
toward a bed, on which lay the body of an old man, all the while trying,
like the clumsy fool I was, to adjust my gas mask. I remember how my
eyes pained and the horrible taste in my mouth, and how my fingers
seemed to be asleep. I thought I saw one of those ghastly yellow
patients sit up and fall back again. The next I knew I was here in this
hospital in this spotless cot, and one of the first things I was really
conscious of was this youngster next me, talking. I am given to
understand that I had a pretty narrow squeak of it, and that I will
cease breathing like a goldfish in time.

I am going to stop writing now in order to talk to my young neighbor,
Archer (or “Souvenir” as they call him). They are just bringing him in
in a wheel chair and he’s eating an apple. Never have I known of anyone
who could eat so many apples—he lives on them.

                  *       *       *       *       *

                        LETTER RECEIVED FROM ROY

      Note: As my acquaintance with young Archer was to
      prove both diverting and profitable, I have boiled
      our conversations down into a sort of narrative in
      which he will appear as something of a character,
      and the chapters which follow were intended to be
      the story of Tom Slade with the Flying Corps, which
      I should present to Roy on my return to America.

      Before submitting this story to you, however, I wish
      to include here a letter which I received from Roy at
      about this time. It was sent to me at the hospital by
      the Associated Press after it had wandered like a lost
      soul up and down the shifting West Front. And it came
      to me like a cool breeze in summer.

      I did not then attach any particular significance to
      its contents. Indeed, I am not sure now that it is
      important in this place. But it interested me greatly,
      and you will be glad to read it because of Roy’s
      epoch-making announcement (at which the public had
      better sit up and take notice) that he is himself soon
      to be launched on the literary sea!

Dear Friend:

You remember you said you’d like me to write you a letter when I got
cheered up, and tell you all the news. Most of it is about our Scout
troop. Last night we had a meeting and they gave me a present of a big
picture of Tom that they had enlarged from the photograph. It’s great!
It was in a frame and has some words underneath—“loyal, staunch and
true”—quoted out of some book or other. Maybe by this time you have
found out some things about him.

Pee-wee Harris said we should send you an anonymous letter—he meant
unanimous letter. Honest, that kid is a scream. He’s Doc Harris’ son,
you know. Jeb Rushmore, our camp manager up in Temple Camp, sent us an
owl to have stuffed and Mr. Ellsworth told Pee-wee it would have to be
sent to a taxidermist. Pee-wee asked me what that was and just for a kid
I told him it was a man that drives a taxi. So he went down to the
station with the owl and asked one of the taxi men to stuff it. I should
worry!

After the meeting we had a debate and I chose the subject. It was to
decide who was the greatest, St. Patrick or the Fourth of July. It was
decided in the affirmative. Crinkums, that was some meeting!

Maybe you’ll be interested to hear that I’m elected Troop Historian, and
I’ve got to write up all our adventures. Some job, believe me! I should
worry. Mr. Ellsworth says maybe he’ll get it published. He says you get
good money for writing a book—but not much of it! He says if I write
just like I talk, it’ll be all right. I’ve decided to write it scout
pace, kind of running, then walking—you know. It’ll be like a hike. Doc
Carson, our first-aid scout, says it ought to be funny, and I promised
I’d chuck some chuckles into it. Pee-wee is going to make the names for
the chapters. Good-night! Maybe you’ll be willing to help me when you
get back, especially with sunsets and green hills and weather and like
that, because you have to have all those things in a book, especially
weather. I said I wouldn’t bother with any weather, but Doc Carson said
all the characters would suffocate. Pee-wee said he’s no use for weather
in stories and he always skips it, anyway. Maybe I’ll have compressed
air instead. Weather and prefaces—good-night!

There’s some news I guess you’ll be interested in. They caught Adolph
Schmitt, who used to keep that grocery store—you remember? You know they
found out he was a spy and he skipped. Now they’ve got him and he’s down
in Atlanta Penitentiary. A long time ago Tom used to deliver groceries
for him.

Well, I’ll say goodbye and if you can find out any things about Tom, you
bet I’ll be glad.

                                        Your friend,

                                                 Roy Blakeley.

I have included this letter from Roy partly because it contained the
earliest portentous hints of those sprightly narratives which were later
to create such a stir in Boy Scout circles, but more particularly
because of its reference to the Schmitt affair.

I remembered the case of Schmitt very well, for it was a nine days’
wonder in Bridgeboro when this jolly, fat German grocer disappeared just
in time to escape a visit from the Secret Service men. I never knew just
what he was suspected of but I understood that incriminating papers, of
a very treasonable purport, were found in the rooms over his store which
he and his whole brood had so suddenly vacated.

The news that Tom Slade had worked for this man interested me, of
course, and fitted pretty well with the secret knowledge which I had.
Had Schmitt’s Grocery been the kindergarten where the poor, ignorant boy
had learned the first contaminating lesson of disloyalty? Well, here I
was with my green spectacles on again, and everything looked green. In
any event, I was glad to know that Schmitt had been caught and lodged in
Uncle Sam’s Penitentiary, where he belonged. Perhaps, I thought, the
worst thing that he did was to insinuate his false reasoning into the
simple mind of his employee and corrupt the clear, honest viewpoint of a
young boy....

------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Narrative written for Roy Blakeley in the Epernay
      Hospital, and intended originally to form a complete
      story under the title of Tom Slade with the Flying
      Corps.




                           CHAPTER I—COMRADES


The following story of a remarkable career was told me mostly by my
young friend, Archibald Archer, who was for a time an occupant of the
adjoining cot to mine in the Epemay Hospital. I shall take the liberty
of enlisting him as a sort of joint narrator with myself, in the sense
of using his own language when that seems desirable. Much that he told
me, I jotted down in shorthand without his knowledge. He was recovering
from slight injuries received while serving with “extinction” (I suppose
he meant distinction) in the Motorcycle Corps. He lived on a farm in New
York State, rolled his R’s, ate apples by the peck when he could get
them, and collected souvenirs by the ton. On the whole, I liked him and
I am sure that when he was not in the mood of banter he was honest and
sincere.

He and Tom Slade had crossed the ocean together as ship’s boys, and
Archer had remained in France resolved to win glory under “Generral
Perrshing.” He became an assistant cook in the Lorraine sector where his
most dramatic exploit in the cause of humanity was the placing of a bowl
of soup on a listening post in No Man’s Land, in such a way that in the
still hours of the night it tumbled its contents upon the proud head of
a sumptuously attired German lieutenant who had leaned against the post.

He did not receive the Distinguished Service Cross for this deed of
heroism, but no doubt it was appreciated, for he shortly became orderly
to some officers and has the lace of an officer’s puttee to prove it.

How he drifted back into sea service again, I do not recall. In any
event, he did and worked again as a ship’s boy, I suppose. Perhaps he
was going home on leave. In any case, he was sitting on the “forrwarrd
hatch,” eating an apple, and was just about to throw the core at a
purser’s assistant when a torpedo struck the ship. It is one of the vain
regrets of his life that he did not throw the core a moment sooner.

A few more days found him in a German prison camp where he soon became
the chief entertainer of that hapless community. Not only did he hobnob
with “Old Piff,” the German commandant, but his genius as a chef won him
immediate recognition and prestige. Here it was that he enlivened the
tedium of the prisoners by handing a bottle of ink to a German guard,
who had demanded some insect dope, to rub on his face one sultry night,
and the “guarrrd’s” face, according to Archer, presented a diverting
sight next morning. He still has the cork of this ink bottle as a
treasured memento or “souveneerrr.”

In the camp, to his great astonishment, he fell in with Tom Slade, who
had also been gathered in with the survivors of a torpedoed transport,
and the two, being kindred spirits and old friends (“comrades to the
death,” Archer said), had contrived to escape together and make their
way through Switzerland into France.

“Slady used to be a Boy Scout,” Archer told me, “and he knew all about
trackin’ and trailin’, and a plaguey lot of otherr things besides. Only
he’d never let you know he knew ’em. He knew about signalling and
’lectricity, and aerroplane engines—he had that old storrage warrehouse
of a head of his filled up with all kinds of junk.”

“What did he look like when you knew him then?” I asked.

“Oh, he looked like he was mad—always sorrt o’ scowling. But he was
trrue as the marrinerr’s compass—I’ll say that forr him.”

“And that’s saying a great deal,” said I. And this reminded me (I can’t
say just why) to ask if Slade had been interested in any girl back in
America.

“Gurrrl? Him?” Archer said. “He had no use forr gurrls, and nutherr have
I. I’d rutherr have an apple any day. Gurrls make me sick.”

“Indeed,” I said. “I should think the apples you eat would make you
sick.”

“Slady told me when we werre comin’ through the Black Forest that he
neverr got no letterrs from gurrls. He said most soldierrs do, but he
didn’t.”

I was a little puzzled at this because—well, just because I was. I think
you will agree, Roy, that soldiers should receive letters from girls. I
was under the impression—but no matter.

When Slade and Archer reached the American front in Alsace they joined
the Motorcycle Corps, becoming messengers behind the lines. In their
long journey through the Black Forest and Switzerland they had resolved
on entering this branch of the service, but their paths soon diverged,
Archer’s sphere of duty being in the neighborhood of Paris, while Tom
rushed back and forth on his machine in the Toul sector until he was
sent far west into Picardy and Flanders on some specially dangerous
service. As long as Tom was attached to the command in Toul sector he
and Archer met occasionally at Troyes and Chaumont where their longer
errands sometimes took them. Then there came a time when Archer saw his
former comrade no more, and he later heard of Tom’s being sent west
where the streams were running red and the paths of the cyclist
messenger were being torn with jagged shell holes.

“I thought maybe Slady had run his machine pell-mell into one of those
places,” said Archer, “until——”

“Well, don’t try to tell me now,” I said. “Lie down and get some sleep.
We’ve all tomorrow before us.”




                  CHAPTER II—TOM APPEARS ON THE SCENE


Out of the clouds he came, sweeping, veering, dodging, scattering the
ghoulish night birds in his flight, the whir of his propeller heard amid
the havoc of wind and storm as he raced with the elements, his soaring
wings outlined with a kind of ghostly clearness in the fitful gleams of
lightning.

Often, as I have lain here in the long monotony of convalescence, I have
thought how he first emerged out of the clouds in wind and rain, a
hurrying spectre glimpsed in sudden flashes, and of how in the end he
disappeared again amid the lashing tempest, up, up, up, into the shadow
of the clouds whence he had come—never to be seen alive by mortal man
again.

Surely, it is not hard to fancy him a kind of spirit of the sky,
visiting this war-scourged land of France, and withdrawing to his
kindred elements when his tragic work was done.

It seems fitting that this creature of fate should have come and gone in
this way; that there should have been no prosy beginning or end to his
career. And I am glad, Roy, for your sake, and for mine and for his
and—yes, for the sake of his sturdy champion, Archer—that only a few of
his earlier and more conspicuous exploits are known and remembered.

I have it from Archer that the night of this first strange thing which I
am about to tell was of intense darkness and incessant, wind-blown rain.
Occasionally, he said, quick, sharp flashes of lightning illumined the
sky and at such times he could see the clouds, as he said, “churrned up
like clabberred milk.”

It was the terminating storm of a long season of rain which had wrought
havoc to the roads and railroad lines—already in sorry plight from
overuse and German artillery fire. Great dependence, it seemed, was
placed upon those sturdy youngsters of the Motorcycle Corps,
particularly just then, when the wires were down, their supporting poles
sprawling in mud or flood.

Archer told me that on that night they could plainly see from Nancy,
where he was stationed, the little church in Chateau Seulans across the
Lorraine border, and could distinguish pigmy figures of German sentries
there, so vivid was the lightning at times.

He says that he had not seen Slade for nearly a year, though I hardly
think it could have been as long as that. In any case, he had been
stationed at Nancy for a month or two and his duties in the quiet sector
(Sleepy Hollow, they called it) were hardly more exciting than those of
an American letter-carrier. It rained almost unceasingly, the soldiers
drilled and played cards, and baled out their trenches, which were
“running rriverrs,” to quote my young friend. Sometimes Fritzie made a
night raid and the boys in khaki made a party call for good manners. But
there wasn’t much going on.

“What would you do if you had a _real_ job—something urrgent?” Archer
says one of the boys asked him.

“I’d take carre of it, all right,” he answered.

“You’d need a boat to get from here to Chaumont now,” the other fellow
said. “Did you look into Mess Dugout 4? It’s nothing but a mudhole.”

“Wherre I’m sent, I’ll go,” said Archer. “I don’t carre if it’s to
Berrlin.”

“Would you make a try for Paris if you had a message for General
Pershing?” his companion teased.

“No, I’d send worrd to General Perrshing to come herre and get it,”
Archer retorted; which apparently ended the talk.

At last something happened. In the latter part of the afternoon they got
a signal from the squint bag[1] and hauled the thing down, the rain
pattering upon its taut bulk and streaming off like a waterfall. The
occupant of its cosy little car announced that the Germans seemed to be
massing all the way from Frouard to the Marne Canal, and that barges
were moving westward along the Canal from La Garde. The observer thought
they might be bringing troops from the railroad town of Berthelingen, or
from Azoudange, where the prison camp was. It had long been necessary
for the Germans to rob Peter to pay Paul and if they were depleting
their guard at the great camp it probably meant that some big enterprise
was in the air. A flier was promptly sent up to reconnoiter eastward,
but the weather was too much for him and he came down like a drowned
bat.

By dusk, the wind was blowing a gale out of the southwest, driving the
rain in sheets so that the squint bag which had ascended again pulled
and strained at its anchorage, dragging sideways and jerking for all the
world like some monstrous fish on the line. They soon hauled it down for
fear of the cable snapping. A drenched courier arrived from Colombey,
below Toul, with the news that every wire in that section was down and
in a hopeless tangle and the rails west of Neufchateau were sunken in
swamp. When you hear mention of railroads in France you must put out of
your thoughts altogether the Pennsylvania and the New York Central—even
the Erie, I am tempted to say; for these roads here are mere toy lines
with ridiculous puffing slow-poke engines and tracks which disappear on
the smallest provocation.

A little before dark, Archer tells me, he was summoned before his
superiors and asked if he believed he could get as far as Brienne, or
perhaps Troyes, with a message. It was hoped that communication might be
open between one or other of those places and Paris, where the commander
was at the time. He answered that he believed he could reach Brienne and
was despatched at once with messages for transmission, of which, of
course, he did not know the contents more than that they pertained to
the enemy’s movements and were urgent in the extreme.

West of Vaucouleurs he found the roads all but impassible. The wind was
blowing a tempest, driving the rain into his face so that he was reduced
to picking his way at a snail’s pace. The darkness was intense, save for
the occasional gleams of forked lightning which illumined the sky and
gilded the clouds with a frightful, portentous brightness.

“It was the kind of weatherr,” says Archer, with characteristic humor,
“when folks always say, ‘Pity the poorr sailorrs on a night like this.’”

He had passed through Gondrescourt inquiring whether communication was
open with points west when he heard the sharp report of an aircraft gun,
apparently from somewhere in the town, and looked up just as a flash of
lightning lit the sky.

His own simple description of what he saw impressed me very much indeed.
“The clouds were small and all feathery like, as if they had been pulled
aparrt,” he said; “the edges all ragged and very bright, like silverr.
It made you feel scarey as if the darrk parrt behind ’em didn’t belong
to this worrld at all.”

Well, it was just in that quick flash that he saw moving across one of
those illumined patches an airplane, its outline as clear as a
silhouette.

“Forr a minute,” said Archer, with a graphic power which surprised me,
“it seemed as if it was one of those witches sailing through the sky,
and it made me feel creepy, as you might say.”

Then, all in a moment, the darkness closed about it, but, listening, he
could hear, in the brief intervals of the tumult, the noise of its
propeller, and the sound struck terror to his heart, for he knew by the
intermittent whir that it was a Hun machine. Archer tells me that this
characteristic of the Hun planes makes them always recognizable at
night. “Theirr hearrt beats different,” as he said.

They must have been a watchful gun crew in the town to spy this vulture
of the night, but their shot had done no damage evidently, for the grim
thing moved along, visible now and again over the cyclist’s head. When
the impediments of marsh and washed-out roads caused him to slacken his
speed, the flier did so also, maneuvering apparently, now visible in the
quick flashes, now only heard amid the rain and wind.

At Aubinal they had a searchlight as well as an aircraft gun and,
hearing the flier, they threw a long column about the sky and fixed him
in a circle of light. Then the sharp report of the gun and the machine
dipped, for all the world like a boy dodging a pursuer. Twice, thrice,
the report rang out, the cyclist pausing among the little group of
excited villagers. Twice, thrice, the machine dipped, while the watchers
held their breath in suspense. But the plane resumed its course, still
visible in bold relief in the circle of light.

Then suddenly there appeared in the sky another plane (presumably, from
somewhere in the neighborhood) rising in pursuit of the enemy craft. So
furious was the lashing of the storm that Archer was thrilled with
admiration at the sight of one of his friends braving the perils of that
tempestuous night to bring down an enemy flier, and as he rode on out of
the little town, fighting his own way in the blinding storm, he wondered
who the bold pursuer could be—whether French or American.

High amid the tumult he could hear shots, which were presently drowned
in the turbulence of the storm, and he had no further glimpse of either
craft.

“I thought our flierr had hit him and sent him down,” said Archer, “and
I says to myself, ‘That fellerr is a hero, all right,’ and I hoped he
was an Amerrican. I wonderred what the Hun plane was doing so far behind
ourr lines on a night like that, but I didn’t have time to wonderr much.
Anyways, I was glad it was overr ’cause it made me feel kind of spooky
to see that black thing like a ghost or a witch or something following
me. I made up my mind I’d ask about who brought it down, so’s I’d know
who it was.”

His way now took him through the flat country east of Brienne where he
hoped that his spooky, drenching journey might end.

The land here was turned into a quagmire, his machine splashing through
mud and water so that he must pause now and again to wrench and haul it
out of some mushy hollow.

The country thereabouts was quite unpopulated, consisting of vast flat
meadows, entirely submerged. The blighting Hun line had once embraced
the locality, and its refugees had not yet returned to a security so
precarious. So there was not even the dim lamplight from a peasant’s
cottage to cheer the hapless messenger.

I have not put young Archer forward as a hero, and I shall not, for I
know in whom you are mainly interested, but I think the courage he
showed that night was remarkable. The road, as I understood him, crossed
a veritable inland sea on an embankment about a foot submerged and had
he verged from the invisible causeway he and his machine would have been
plunged into a considerable depth of water. He was guided by his
instinct and such of the fallen poles as had not been washed away.

But it was all quite hopeless, as he realized before he was a quarter of
the way across the flooded area. His wheels, sunk in mud, were all but
inextricable, and he finally realized, or acknowledged, the terrible
predicament he was in. There he was, the plaything of a lashing tempest,
marooned upon a sunken road, wrenching and tugging at his wheel as it
settled lower and lower in the mud. Above him the thunder crashed, now
and again the lightning rent the sky showing the heavens thick with
those little restless, feathery clouds. His face felt hot and sore from
the beating of the rain against it. I suspect that his nerve was
wavering and little wonder.

Then he heard amid the uproar the whirring of an airplane and he stood
stark still listening. Perhaps his distracted mind made him susceptible
to vague imaginings, and he experienced a feeling of horror at the
thought of this uncanny creature of the night hovering in the clouds
above him, until he realized that it was probably the friendly plane
which, having brought down the enemy machine, was on its way with
messages to Paris. The thought afforded him a measure of relief and
reconciled him to his own desperate plight. What matter, so long as the
urgent news were carried? And what an airman he must be who could fly
through this inferno, braving thunder, lightning and storm....

I must tell you this in Archer’s own words.

“I was tugging at my machine, trying to haul it out of the mud, but
everry jerrk I gave it I went deeperr in the mud myself. I rememberr how
I wrenched on the front wheel, this way and that, so my headlight
pointed every which way and I could see the waterr all around—as much as
half a mile on both sides of me, I should think. Be-forre that I didn’t
know how much of the country was flooded. I seemed to be in the middle
of the ocean, as you might say, only in places there were little
islands, like, where the water didn’t quite cover the fields. I knew I
couldn’t get my machine out of the mud and I thought I’d be betterr off
if I left it and waded over to one of those islands because the road I
was on was underr waterr and was washing away, sorrt of.

“So I turrned my handle-barr so’s to throw the searrchlight around overr
that flooded space and try to decide which way to go. I thought maybe I
could get across it quickerr that way; and then run to the nearest town.
All of a sudden, while I was throwing my light like that, I hearrd the
buzz of an airrplane verry nearr and a very loud whistlin’ sound like
this (he simulated a loud, shrill whistling) and then I hearrd a splash
quite a long way off and then more splashing not so loud.

“I turrned my light in that direction and saw a big airrplane comin’ to
a standstill in the waterr and the rain was pourin’ down off its planes
just like a waterrfall. I thought it must be the flierr that brought
down the Hun machine, and I thought he must be wrecked and was dead,
maybe.

“Forr a minute I held my handle-barr so’s the light was right on the
plane and then I had a good scarre, you can bet, forr I could see plain
as day on the body of it and on the rudderr the black cross with a white
borrderr like they have on Hun machines!”

The dramatic descent of this apparition through that tempestuous storm,
and its clear outline as it stood focussed in the circle of brightness
thrown by Archer’s headlight, must have been quite enough to disconcert
him. For a moment, he says, he stood there trembling, the wind howling
about him, the rain beating on his face, the heavy darkness shutting out
everything save that meteor-like thing out of the troubled heavens.

Then a figure emerged from under its dripping plane and called to him.
In the high wind he could not hear what this apparition said, the voice
seeming thin and spent in contrast with the tumult, or, as Archer said,
“as if it came from a ghost.” Then he caught the words “landing” and
“guide.”

He was not greatly surprised at that, for it was not uncommon to find
Germans speaking English. For a moment he hesitated, then, drawing his
side arm, he stepped forward through the water, toward the strange
visitor. Again the man spoke, but the wind was away from him and Archer
could not hear what he said. He confessed that he was not accustomed to
encounters with the enemy, but he knew what to do and called, “Hold up
your hands if you surrenderr; if you don’t, I’ll shoot”; all the while
wading through the flooded meadow.

[Illustration: “HOLD UP YOUR HANDS; IF YOU DON’T, I’LL SHOOT.”]

The stranger, so he says, raised his hands very leisurely and lifted his
goggles up on his forehead, for all the world like some dear old
grandma, which tickled Archer’s funny bone. This finicky little act
seemed odd in one of those adventurous denizens of the sky, and I have
heard others besides Archer speak of it. Then the stranger, standing
there amid the screaming wind and blinding storm, raised his hands as if
to surrender. But Archer was not unfamiliar with the “kamarad” game, and
he advanced cautiously. The screaming of the wind through the wiring of
the machine was terrific but through it, as he stumbled along, he
fancied (I quote his own words) that he could “hearr the worrd
‘souveneerrr’ as if it was in the airrr, sorrt of.”

Then suddenly he stopped amazed to hear these words uttered in plain
English:

“I suppose you’re after a piece of this airplane for a souvenir. How is
it you ain’t chewin’ an apple?”

He stood where he was, too dumbfounded to speak, and looked at the
drenched figure in dismay.

“Can I take my hands down now?” the flier said in a familiar, dull
voice, but smiling.

As you probably have guessed, it was none other than Archer’s former
comrade, Tom Slade, who stood facing him.

“’Till I hearrd that about souveneerrrs I neverr thought anything about
it,” Archer said, as a sort of climax to this extraordinary episode, and
raising his knees high up in the bed as was his custom; “but as soon as
he reminded me of it I made up my mind I’d get a piece of that bloomin’
machine to take home—by Christopherrr!”

That seemed to be the main consideration with him.

“Do you think you are fonder of souvenirs than of apples?” I inquired
slyly, for his narrative was interrupted by the nurse’s bringing him one
from a box of them which I understood had made a long and patriotic
pilgrimage from the Catskills.

“Therre’s only one thing about apples I like,” he observed, as he took
an enormous bite, “and that’s the taste of ’em. Slady used to always kid
me about apples—but you can bet yourr life I got three tacks out of the
leatherr seat of that gol-bloomin’ Hun machine!”

-----

Footnote 1:

  Observation balloon.




              CHAPTER III—SLADE’S EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE


Indeed, to close this important matter now, Archer got considerably more
than the three tacks from the leather seat. He got a lock-nut from that
“inferrnal combustion engine,” (I suppose he meant _internal_), a
splinter of fabulous value from the casing of a Hun altimétre, and
something which looked like an American collar button, but which he
assured me had had an adventurous career above the clouds. He found it
in the car of the machine and if it was a collar button, why, it might
possibly have been worn by the Kaiser, so it was of priceless value in
any case.

“What arre you doing herre?” Archer says he finally managed to ask, “in
a Hun——”

“I’m standing here,” said Slade in a dry way which Archer says was
characteristic of him. “Help me lift out this bag of sand, will you?
There isn’t any time to talk. I escaped in this thing from the prison
camp at Azoudange. They sent away pretty near the whole guard. They’re
goin’ to attack. They didn’t know I knew anything about aviation.
Hurry—you’ll have to sit there.”

“What became of the fellerr that went up afterr you back therre?” Archer
asked.

“He had to go down,” said Slady dryly; “on account of the weather. Hurry
up. I’ve been hanging over you waiting for you to show me a place to
light, but you never would and that’s just like you. It wasn’t till you
got stuck, just as I knew you would, and moved your light all around
that I got a good squint. Chuck it out—quick.”

Archer climbed the step and looked into the cosy little car of a German
Albatross, two-seater fighting plane. Throwing his light about, he saw
in a quick glance the luxurious seat of the pilot and the plainer one
for the accompanying flier—a heavy bag of sand lashed upon it. He saw
the compass, the altimétre, the revolution counter, and something which
he said looked like a shade roller all wound round with oilskin.

“Don’t touch that,” Slade warned as Archer’s souvenir-loving fingers
lingered about it; “its the rolling-map—it shows a lot of things behind
the German lines.”

Archer climbed into the car, the floor of which was covered with water
like a leaky boat, and threw the bag from the seat he was to occupy.

“You might have had sense enough to know you could never get anywheres
in the flat country tonight,” Slade told him. “Why didn’t you follow the
Marne ridge?”

“’Cause I didn’t know about it,” Archer confessed frankly.

“Where are you going—to Paris?”

“Yes, or the nearest point of communication.”

“Good I picked you up,” said Slade.

Archer said he was so “flabberrgasted” at this almost miraculous meeting
with Slade that it was some minutes before he realized the significance
of all that had occurred. “You couldn’t make Slady talk,” he told me.
“He’d only say what was necessary and even then he was kind of clumsy
telling things. That was why he never botherred much with girrls, I
guess. Maybe that’s why they neverr botherred with him.”

“Maybe one did bother with him and you didn’t know anything about it,” I
suggested.

“Nix,” said Archer, with great decision.

Then he went on to tell me at some length much that he himself did not
learn until afterward, and even then extracted from his hero much as a
dentist draws teeth. “I had to give him gas to get anything out of him,”
he said.

It was a very remarkable story, and I will tell it now.

One night about a month before this Slade, on his motorcycle, had been
carrying a message from headquarters at Louzanne to a point some twenty
miles distant when his machine ran into a shell hole near the village of
La Pavin. This village was held by the French under constant menace from
the enemy.

The hole was very deep and Slade’s head striking a part of his machine
as he fell, he was stunned and lay unconscious in the ragged excavation
for what he afterwards judged must have been several hours.

When he regained consciousness he found himself in a predicament which
must have struck horror even to such a stolid nature as his. There he
lay upon the wreck of his machine in a stifling atmosphere of gasolene.
Where he was he could not imagine at first but he was thoughtful enough
not to strike a match to light his acetylene searchlight which,
moreover, as he later found, was broken.

Presently as he was able to gather his wits, he remembered what had
happened, but why the sickening fumes of gasolene should permeate the
place he could not guess until, feeling about above him, he discovered
the appalling cause of this condition. The shell hole was completely
closed by a hard, irregular surface which felt warm to the touch.

I leave you to imagine his feelings. He told Archer that he knew his
consciousness was but temporary. “I knew I’d faint any minute,” he said.
Yet he displayed enough of his characteristic calmness to reflect that
this complete closing of the hole could not have been of long duration
or he would be dead already. Whatever happened must have happened within
a very few minutes, he thought.

“That was just like Slady,” Archer said, as he told me about it. “He
neverr got excited. He always just sat down and thought what was the
best thing to do next.”

Yet I think he must have been somewhat unnerved then. In any case, he
felt of his gasolene tank and found that the feed pipe had been wrenched
away; not so much as a drop of gasolene was there left in it. The
slightest spark in that horrible, dark prison would have resulted in a
death more terrible than any which the ingenious Huns could have
devised.

Again Slade felt of the warm, hard surface above him and ran his fingers
in the interstices which seemed straight and regular. The surface was of
a warmth much greater than the stifling warmth of his prison, like a
warm radiator.

His head began to pound and he suffered from a straining feeling about
his eyes, which was ominous, as an army surgeon has since told me. Yet
with the few remaining minutes of life which apparently remained to him,
Tom Slade crouched upon the wreck of his machine and _thought_.

I am telling you this not after his own fashion of telling it, as Archer
repeated it to me, for evidently Slade had no idea at all of the story
possibilities of his own experiences.

The result of his thinking was that with a piece of broken glass from
his headlight he hurriedly dug a deep hole in the earth in which he
deposited his papers, filling the hole again and smoothing it over. By
the sheer power of his will he kept his wits while he was doing it and
having finished he had barely the strength to bang with a rock against
the hard surface above him.

“What did you think it was?” Archer says he asked him.

“I thought it was a tank,” Slade answered, “and I wasn’t going to take
any chances with my messages till I knew for certain everything was all
right.” The result proved that this precaution had been a wise one.

I suspect that those few seconds of frantic banging, while he fought a
losing battle against his ebbing consciousness, were perhaps the most
terrific in all his adventurous career. He told Archer that his head
swam and that finally he fell exhausted, struggling like a maniac for
each breath he drew, his eyes throbbing madly.

He did not know whether the hard roof actually moved, for everything
seemed to be moving now, and he was wavering on the edge of
unconsciousness. The last rational thought that he remembered having was
that the tank must have been deserted. His leg slipped between the
spokes of his wheel, he heard a strange noise, saw a little round light,
and thought it was a spark which would ignite the fumes and....

What he really saw as he passed out of that borderland of consciousness
was a star in the bright, clear heaven.

They lifted him, limp and all but lifeless, out of that poisoned dungeon
and laid him on the cool earth and searched him for his papers. They had
taken the little village of La Pavin in a night attack. The huge metal
monster which had shut him in stood hard by and when he came to his
senses he saw it there, brutal in its power and its ugliness—heartless,
irresistible, horrible. For I will tell you on my own account that of
all the engines of combat or of locomotion which man has made there is
nothing so loathesome in its suggestiveness of soulless cruelty as one
of these same monster tanks.

But Herr Von Something-or-other did not find the papers of the
messenger, and the messenger only smiled when they asked him about them.
They raised the broken motorcycle and looked about beneath it with
flashlights. But there were no papers. And so they took the messenger
into the village and put him in the little dressing station there and
gave him oxygen and used a pulmotor and brought him round. He said
afterwards (I mean long afterwards) that the Germans had treated him
well, been kind to him, and that he did not believe all the tales of
German atrocities which he had heard. He said these Germans seemed like
friends. I mention this because he was subsequently accused of
professing sympathy for them and came very near to being
court-martialled for it. Archer says it was just his blunt sense of
common fairness, a notable characteristic of his, and that what he said
has reference only to the treatment he received on that particular
occasion. In any event, nothing came of it.

Slade was taken, along with some of the defenders of La Pavin, to the
big prison camp at Azoudange, on the Marne Canal a few miles east of
Nancy. You will remember that as the place from which the balloon
observer thought that troops were being sent forward toward the lines.
It is in Lorraine, not far from Saarburg.

There Slade remained, and there he was on the stormy night of his great
adventure, which was to prove his brevet flight[2], and bring him face
to face with his former comrade, Archer.

I suppose you know that Slade had always taken a great interest in
aviation. He had a Boy Scout badge for proficiency in this business, so
Archer says, and was pretty thoroughly posted on airplane construction
and mechanics. How far into the science these Scout studies took him you
may be better able to tell than I, but that they aroused a very
intelligent interest in these things there is no doubt. In the early
period of his service in the Motorcycle Corps he was attached to the
airdrome at Calleaux where he was very popular with the “fledglings.” He
tried, indeed, to get into that branch of the service, but without
success. Archer says that Slade’s practical knowledge of gas engines was
very thorough, he was something of an expert on cycle motors, and seemed
perfectly familiar with the type used in aircraft.

I suspect he must have learned a good deal in the hours of leave which
he spent among the fliers who were learning in the airdrome at Calleaux.
Certain it is that he hobnobbed with them in their barracks, for Archer
says that Slade told him of fixing their Victrola and varying the
monotony of the single record which they had by boring a hole in it a
little off centre, producing a “wierrd kind of music,” as Archer said.
For this ingenious novelty Slade was taken up with one of the
instructors and permitted to “handle the broomstick” all by himself.
Whatever other experiences he had among that fraternal company he did
not communicate to Archer, nor to any one else apparently.

[Illustration: ROUGH SKETCH OF THE ROAD TO PEVY.]

And so we find him in the big barbed wire enclosure at Azoudange, stolid
and silent, with an uncertain quantity of more or less superficial
knowledge of aeronautics in his towhead, and all the reckless courage of
a heaven-born adventurer.

It was characteristic of Slade that he did not let the guards nor even
his fellow prisoners know that he understood German and could speak it
fairly well. “What’s the use of telling anything you don’t have to
tell?” he said to Archer. “And that was Slady all overr,” Archer
remarked. So vivid were these little things he told me of his friend
that sometimes I almost felt as if I had known him and I certainly
wished that I could have seen him.

Well, a week or so before this stormy night Slade heard a German major
who was known among the prisoners by the martial name of Bottle-nose
talking to another officer about the quiet sector across the lines where
the Americans were playing baseball and having concerts. He listened
with ears which would have done credit to a startled hare.

Within two days he knew that preparations were on foot for a surprise
attack upon a very large scale; that the Germans were planning to take
advantage of the embarrassed condition of communications behind the
American lines and the supposed difficulties of observation. Thus bad
weather may sometimes be turned to good account. From the confines of
his spacious prison he could see the dimmed lights upon the canal near
by and hear the voices which told him that barges were passing along
toward La Garde, bound for the front in French Lorraine.

On the day before this culminating storm, the wire which enclosed the
prison camp and which had been dead for some time (owing, it was said,
to the scarcity of fuel and impairment of generating machinery), was
electrified, and that very night the entire guard was marched away, save
for a few old men and cripples who did “stretch” duty[3]. Archer has it
from Slade that one of these, an old German with snow white hair, limped
back and forth on crutches outside the wires, covering his alloted
distance of a couple of hundred yards or more in a steady downpour, and
was shot in the morning because he had collapsed in his tracks.

I leave you to imagine the effect that all these portentous movements
and preparations must have produced in the mind of a prisoner who must
needs watch them and be impotent to do anything. The fact that the big
prison camp was so near the border and the battle line, where these
hurried preparations were intensive, was enough to distress the soul of
a patriot. “Slady was all nutty about it,” Archer said.

Late in the afternoon of that memorable day, Slade watched several
German officers, intent upon their observations through a powerful field
glass. They were evidently watching the observation balloon to which I
have already referred. Slade was required to hold an umbrella over the
head of “Herr General” while he studied the tiny object which bobbed in
the distance.

They were troubled about this little speck for it had an eye—an eye in a
long tube, just like their own, which could see a very long way. And the
final number of their program of preparation was yet to come. If they
were going to get the troops from Pfalzburg through before morning they
would have to begin these movements before dark.

“Ich wuensche sein verdammter cable wuerdc zerbrechen,” said Herr
General; which meant that he wished the cable of the balloon would
break.

If they had waited a little longer they would have had the satisfaction
of seeing this aerial eavesdropper hauled down in fear of that very
catastrophe. But instead they discussed the possibility of spearing[4]
the thing by airplane.

Herr General said that no airplane could go out in such weather.

Major Von Something-or-other insisted that it could—that the Germans
could do anything.

The upshot of it was that they sent Slade with a message written in
German to the telegraph station in the commandant’s quarters. Slade read
it on the way and saw that it was a despatch to the great German
airdrome near Dossenheim requesting that a skillful flier with rocket
equipment be sent at once to the prison camp. Scarcely had he delivered
it into the hands of the operator when the young major followed him to
make sure that it had been sent. Slade returned to the leaky barracks
where he lived and on the way “bunked plunk into Bottle-nose,” as he
said, “and had to salute him and say I was sorry.”

From which I take it that Slade’s mind was wool-gathering. I have often
wished that I knew his thoughts in reference to his actions. I have
sometimes felt that if I could have seen him I might have pierced his
inpenetrable stolidness and reserve. These things that I am telling you
in a fairly orderly way leaked out of him, as it were, in his subsequent
chats with Archer. The nurses here have told me something of Slade’s own
talk, but it was fragmentary and unsatisfactory. The more I know of him,
the more I wish I could have met him. He was a sort of stormy petrel of
the service, and because he “talked clumsy, sorrt of,” as Archer puts
it, and said very little at that, he seems to have acquired rather more
the reputation of an adventurer than that of a patriot. But if Archer
knew anything to his friend’s discredit, he has not told it to me, and
probably would not do so since his friend is dead. Very likely he knew
of nothing.

But to get back to Slade. What thought he had in mind on that momentous
rainy afternoon, who shall say? He told Archer that he sat down in his
barracks and wrote half a dozen notes, all in the same phraseology.

“Did you ever see any of Slade’s handwriting?” it occurred to me to ask.

“Surre. Why?”

“Have you any of it now?”

“Nope,” said Archer; “he didn’t botherr about letterrs. Why?”

“I just wondered,” I replied; “I think I may have seen his handwriting.”

“Maybe back in Bridgeboro, hey?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Go on with the story.”

“Well,” said Archer, “as near as I can rememberr, this is what he
wrote—half a dozen notes—all the same:

    “The Germans are massing from Champrey as far east as the
    mountains. They are going to attack tomorrow. This is to let
    you know. They are going to advance in close formation.”

Having written these notes, Archer says Slade told him he went out and
picked up as many stones. There was some string which had come around
packages sent to prisoners from the American Red Cross, and with this he
bound each note to a stone. On a junk heap near the barracks he had
often noticed certain stiff, rusty pieces of heavy wire turned into eyes
at one end. They were two feet or so long and he had always supposed
them to be old ramrods from rifles or muskets. He picked out half a
dozen of these, tied the eye ends together with a piece of string and
hung them about his neck so that they depended against his back and
under his jacket and trousers. The stones he distributed in his pockets.

Then he went to a sordid little shack where languished a certain French
soldier, Lauzerne by name, whom he knew and liked. Here is a time when I
should like to know just what he said. But at least I know what Lauzerne
said. Slade asked him if he would be willing to help him in a certain
matter that night “if things came around right.” Lauzerne asked what it
was, for, though presumably of French impulsiveness and generosity, he
was a cautious poilu. Slade told him (“I suppose in that stupid drawl of
his,” Archer observes) that if a certain German airplane should make a
landing on the grounds that night he hoped to go away in it and advise
the allies of their peril.

“Ziss ees—what you say—crazee!” exclaimed Lauzerne.

To which Slade replied that all he wanted Lauzerne to do was to turn the
propeller for him, but that he wasn’t sure of anything yet.

We have it on his own authority that Lauzerne looked at him with dismay
for full half a minute and that Slade said, “What’s the matter with
you?”

Then it was that Lauzerne threw his hands into the air, his fingers
spread wide, and uttered the national exclamation of France, more
eloquent than the Marseillaise:

“Oi, la, la! Oi, la, la!”

-----

Footnote 2:

  The supreme and final test for an airman before he enters upon his
  regular war duties.

Footnote 3:

  A condition in which a number of guards around the enclosure being
  removed, those remaining must lengthen their patrols in order to cover
  the ground.

Footnote 4:

  Approaching a balloon in an airplane and puncturing it with a rocket.




                       CHAPTER IV—FIRE AND WATER


As you know, the observation balloon was finally drawn down on account
of the weather, and this happened before there was time for an enemy
flier to attack it. A very short while after this occurred, however, a
big German plane was seen maneuvering in the thick sky, and presently
came swooping down, clearing the wires by only a few feet and coming to
a standstill near one end of the big enclosure. If the despatch of Herr
General had instructed the flier to proceed upon his errand of
destruction direct from his hangar he might have accomplished his
purpose.

The weather conditions were so unfavorable for flight and the landing
was made with such conspicuous skill that even the prisoners who hurried
to the spot, hungry for any diversion, cheered moderately as the airman,
swathed in furs and oilskins, climbed out, threw his helmet into the car
and, pushing rudely among them, hurried to the commandant’s quarters.
The little group of forlorn prisoners soon dispersed, leaving one
apparently half-interested onlooker peering idly into the car.

That onlooker was Thomas Slade.

Archer tells me from his own observation that this plane was of the bad
weather type, oilskin coverings, and every part enclosed where enclosure
was feasible. Like most of the German planes (and everything else German
for that matter) grace and speed were sacrificed to strength and if any
aircraft can be said to be built to withstand the buffettings of the
weather, the German bad-weather Albatross is the one to do it.

I do not know how Slade felt in face of his great adventure nor whether
he considered the punishment which might befall for failure or even for
meddling. What he did, he did quickly, for dallying was dangerous
business. For a few tense moments he waited, patiently but anxiously. If
he had any nerves at all I think they must have been on edge then.

Presently, Lauzerne appeared out of the darkness.

“Have you got the can?” Slade asked him.

Lauzerne handed him a battered tin can out of which he had been drinking
water for six months.

“Hand it here and go back a ways and watch if there’s anybody coming.”

Like lightning he removed his almost threadbare jacket, tore off his
shirt, slipped his jacket on again, and tore the shirt into several
strips.

“Anybody coming?” he whispered, as he broke the string about his neck.
He next pulled the pieces of rag about half way through the ring ends of
the six rusted bars and to the other end of each bar he fastened a stone
with a note wrapped about it.

“Anybody coming?” I can almost hear his impatient whispering.

No one.

He climbed into the car with his strange burden, and drew a canful of
gasolene out of the tank. Even in his hurry and peril he was thoughtful
enough to ascertain whether there was plenty of gas. Then he was
ready—if one can be said to be ready for a flight in a storm who is
without any garment save a threadbare suit of khaki.

But he was not destined thus to depart. He had just laid his
message-bearing missiles in the car and hung the can upon the bar of his
steering gear so that it would not spill its contents with the tipping
of the machine, when his companion communicated to him the appalling
news that someone was coming. Slade descended from the car, but had not
time enough to remove his telltale equipment. Lowering himself upon his
hands and knees he did the only thing that he could do in his
predicament, which was to creep under the axle bar of the wheels and lie
parallel with it in the hope that he might appear as part of its shadow.
In this precarious situation he pulled his coat over his head and kept
his hands well under his body so that he presented no human sign or
feature to the casual glance. You may be interested to know that he told
Archer this trick, as he called it, was customary in the art of stalking
and that he had learned it when a Boy Scout. So his scouting did him a
good turn—to use the phrase you are so fond of.

Presently he could hear ponderous footsteps and was aware of someone
approaching rapidly. He felt that his great enterprise was soon to have
an ignominous if not a fatal end. What his feelings must have been you
may imagine, but he lay motionless and scarcely breathed.

The man approached the car so that Slade could have touched his feet.
There he remained for a minute, then turned and went away. Without so
much as stirring Slade waited until the footfalls had receded beyond
earshot. Then he crawled out. An oilskin tarpaulin had been laid over
the opening of the car, raised upon a hoop and buttoned to the sides to
shed the rain.

“Quick!” he whispered. “Are you there?”

As his companion approached he removed this tarpaulin (which could not
be used thus in flight) and wound it around his body and legs, having
first taken his seat in the car.

“Do you want to go?” he asked, ready to cast out the sandbag on his
friend’s word.

“Oi, la, la! I am not so crazee!” his companion repeated.

“Well, then, stand ready.”

Slade buckled himself in, fastened on the helmet, and turned on the
little electric light and carefully examined and tested the controls.
The rudders responded as he expected, the elevating planes moved to his
touch. He located the contact button and made sure of that. He felt of
the gas manet and made sure that there was nothing to differentiate it
essentially from the same thing on French machines. Such differences as
he found were merely of style and location. “It is a matter of daring,
not of learning;” he remembered those words of Wilbur Wright’s.

I think there is no moment in Slade’s career when he appears so
admirable as when he sat there in that Hun machine, self-assured and
confident, yet forgetting nothing that he might need to know after
starting. “He always used his brains,” Archer said.

“Give her a few spins,” he finally said. He wished the engine to suck in
the mixture.

“All right—again.”

“The motor took, first crack out of the box,” he told Archer; “and as
soon as I felt the vibration I knew everything was all right—it made me
feel as if I could do anything. I pulled back my manet, full gas,
grabbed my elevating plane control, and sailed over the barbed wires
hitting right into the wind.”

“It made me laugh,” Archer said, “how he always spoke about _his_
controls as if he owned them.”

The story of that extraordinary flight, at least the first stage of it,
remains a mystery. It is not until Archer enters upon the scene that we
get anything approaching a satisfactory view of that wild night in the
skies. There is no doubt that he passed over Arracourt, for one of his
missiles landed there, giving timely warning. The rag which was run
through the eye end of the metal bar had been dipped in gasolene and
ignited but was sufficiently far from the message at the other end of
the bar to save it from the flames, particularly as the stone had a
tendency to cause the whole contrivance to descend vertically. The
flaming rag, as was intended, attracted instant attention and brought a
curious horde of people to the field where it fell. Another of these
fell in Pont a Mousson where, it is thought, the flier may have seen the
light of a burning house and considered the place to be important. It
was picked up by a little girl and was the cause of messengers being
immediately despatched to Nomeny and Thiaucourt and to Toul, where heavy
reserves were in billets.

Only one of the remaining four of these missives was ever found—or at
least, reported. That was in the village of Lareaux among the hills
about thirty miles southeast of Verdun. So the flier must have succeeded
in following the battle line for seventy or more miles in a
northwesterly direction. This last missive resulted in heavy
reenforcements being sent from the Verdun sector eastward. Archer wished
that he had one of these strange meteors for a “souveneerr” and I should
like to have one myself. Particularly, I should like to see Slade’s
official report of his flight, but the powers that be will not vouchsafe
me a glimpse of it.

Archer thinks that after this seventy miles of bucking the wind and
rain, Slade must have ascended above the storm somewhere in the
neighborhood of the hills which filled the old Verdun salient. He told
Archer that for a while he was in quiet air about twenty-eight hundred
feet up, but came down in hopes of seeing the lights of towns into which
he might drop his remaining missives. He said he lost control in the
storm and for a while was almost entirely at the mercy of the elements,
turning turtle once, and regaining and keeping his stability by
tremendous effort, while being blown in a southwesterly direction. He
must have been in the greatest peril at that time.

At last he saw the lights of a large town, or rather that bright haze
caused by the blending of many lights, which suggests a populous centre.
Here he hoped to make a landing if the lightning showed him a suitable
field, and he tried to manouver over the place, awaiting a flash. But he
was borne in a southwesterly direction and had all he could do to hold
his plane stable. Archer thinks the town was probably Commercy.

In any event, his drifting southward continued until he was above
Gondrescourt where he descended into the straight wind current out of
the west and found his progress comparatively easy. He was flying due
west then, into the very teeth of the wind but it was not as “choppy” at
his height as the belated cyclist found it.

It was just after Archer rode out of Gondrescourt toward the west, that
he heard the shots and saw the airplane in the openings of the clouds.

Slade’s one object then was to make a landing, but he must wait for a
propitious flash of lightning to show him a place. He realized now, as
he had not in all the haste of his mad flight, that however friendly his
errand he would be shot as soon as the fatal whir of his propeller was
heard and the gun crews got a sight of him. With the big black Hun cross
upon his machine he was as good as dead if he attempted landing in a
town, even supposing he could discover a safe landing place.

And this, apparently, was the outcome of his heroic flight—that he
should be a sort of outcast in the troubled sky. He had not anticipated
the difficulties of landing in a Hun plane.

As we know, he had twice succeeded in dodging anti-aircraft fire, and he
was now resolved to make a try at landing in the devasted flat country
which stretched for miles east of Brienne. He knew this country well,
had crossed it many times on his motorcycle, and had seen it flooded on
one notable occasion when he had ridden from Alsace to Flanders.

He could not, of course, even by flying dangerously low in such weather,
pick out the single road which crossed this area from Joinville to
Brienne, but in his extremity he chanced to notice far below him a sort
of dusky shaft moving along the deserted meadows.

It must have been a thrilling sight to the storm-tossed flier who only
by this sign was able to verify his very dubious idea of where he was.
He knew well enough that the shaft of brightness came from the headlight
of a motorcycle and he believed that the rider, whoever he was, was
hurrying to Paris, perhaps bearing the very news which he himself had
dropped from his stolen plane.

And here is an instance thoroughly typical of Slade, who could reason
calmly in wind and storm. “I knew if I was right,” he said, “and it was
what we always called the flats down there, and he was on the causeway
road, why, pretty soon he’d get stuck and then he’d throw his light
around to see where he was at and maybe it would show me a place to
land.”

So he flew lower than it was safe to fly when constant maneuvering was
necessary, for of course the strong westerly gale which he was facing
would lose all its supporting effect instantly he took it in any
quarter. Yet he must manouver in all this hubbub of earth-wind, for the
cyclist was proceeding slowly and, as we know, with great difficulty.

It was just at the moment when Archer’s headlight threw its dusky column
across the meadows that Slade, alert and watchful, swooped down into the
unincumbered area which the guiding light had shown him.

In the whole war I know of no episode concerning individuals which I
think more dramatic than the meeting of these two. By all the rules of
the story-telling game they should have “parted no more,” but Slade, as
I told you, was a sort of stormy petrel, coming and going, and we can
only hope to glimpse him on the wing. Even the immediate circumstances
concerning his death art more or less of a mystery.




                           CHAPTER V—TOGETHER


“It was just like you; I knew you’d get stuck,” were the consoling words
which Slade uttered to Archer. “You should have gone by the Ridge road
and you’d have been all right.”

“Yes, and where would _you_ have landed if it hadn’t been forr me?”
Archer very properly replied. “You’d have been tearrin’ arround the sky
and maybe got stranded on Marrs for all _I_ know.”

“Don’t roll your R’s so much,” Slade replied. “Can’t you say Mars?”

“It was good to see him again,” Archer told me, “and hearr him talk in
that funny, soberr way he had. He was always kidding me about R’s.”
Indeed, it would be hard to say who was the rescuer and who the rescued
in this extraordinary business. I suppose it may be said that they
rescued each other.

“What are we going to do now?” Archer asked. “I’ve got to get to Brienne
if I can, or go all the way to Paris if I have to. They won’t do a thing
but wing us in Paris. I say, keep out of Paris.”

Which was very good advice, first and last, and more than one boy in
khaki had heard it.

“Do you know wherre we arre?” Archer asked.

“I know _about_ where we are,” Slade answered. “Throw your searchlight
over there. See that kind of black——”

“Yes, I see it,” Archer interrupted.

“I think that’s the hills near Barsaby,”[5] Tom replied. “Wait till I
see what time it is. There’ll be a train leaving there about eleven,
going down to Chatillon. It whistles just before it goes in the tunnel.
If I hear that I can tell about where we are.”

“Maybe it can’t run,” Archer reminded him.

“It’s got to run—that’s a commissary centre,” Slade said. “And it’s
right along the mountains anyway.” He looked at his watch and saw that
it was fifteen minutes of eleven.

“What do you mean to do?” Archer asked, a bit puzzled.

“If I hear that whistle, I can tell just about where we are,” Slade
said. “If it sounds kind of dim south of here I’ll know we’re just about
east of Troyes. I know we’re east of Troyes but I can’t tell if we’re a
little north or a little south of it. I’d rather use my ears than a
compass a night like this. I can run her straight west all right, right
into the wind, but if I’ve got to climb upstairs I want to know it.”

Archer did not fully understand, nor indeed did I, except I infer that
Slade intended to measure the almost exact distance to a certain place
(Bar-sur-Aube) by the whistle of a locomotive and to lay his aerial
course accordingly. I think that here was another instance of the value
of his woods lore and scout training.

That he did this thing, Archer assures me. The rain was at last holding
up and the gale subsiding into a brisk, steady wind out of the west, and
they sat, these two, in the two seats of the plane, and chatted about
old times, there in that desolate submerged meadow. And here is
something that will please you.

“He was talking about Bridgeboro, wherre he used to live,” said Archer,
“and a fellerr he knew therre that got him into the Boy Scouts a long
time ago. Roy Blakeley was that fellerr’s name.” So you see that far
away in the devastated, scourged land of France, your name was given to
the same wind which was to bear these two adventurers to their
destination. And so, chatting, they waited in the lonely darkness.

“The job will be getting her started,” Slade said.

“How about landing?” Archer asked him.

“It’ll be easier now I’ve got somebody with me. Got your dispatch book?”

Of course Archer had.

“Then go and get a spoke out of your wheel or maybe the timer-bar would
be better. Get two or three spokes. You’ve got your clippers all right,
haven’t you? Go ahead. I’ll tell you when you get back. Get some wire
off your mudguard, too.”

“There was only one way to do with Slady,” Archer observes. “You had to
do just what he said.”

So he waded through the soggy field to where his motorcycle, half sunken
in the mud which had been a road, stood “pokin’ upwarrd,” as he said,
“like an old balky horrse.” Its carbureter and gas tank must have been
filled with mud by now and there was no hope of getting a kick out of it
even if he could have extricated it. With his nippers he clipped off
several spokes and removed also the long nickel rod by which the timer
was controlled at the handle bar. This was about three feet long. He
took also the wire and his nippers.

Scarcely had he returned when they were both struck silent by the thin,
spent sound of a locomotive whistle far in the distance.

“You’re all right, Slady!” Archer exclaimed in admiration.

“It’s comin’ across the wind,” said Slade. “We’ve got to allow for
that.” He screwed up his mouth sideways, Archer said, and looked for all
the world like a “regularr old grandmotherr with his goggles up on his
forrehead.”

“It’s all right,” he said finally, “we’re all right now if we can only
get her out of here. These old Hun ice wagons weigh about a hundred
tons. If we fly straight west we’ll strike Troyes in half an hour. Even
if we don’t just strike it, we’ll see the glare and that’s all I care
about. We can land in the school[6] just outside the town. They’ll have
the four lights on account of a patrol being out, maybe. We’ll have to
take our chances with the patrol. We can fly square and there won’t be
any draft, that’s one good thing.”

I think you will see from his talk what he hoped to do. He knew that
they were not far east of Troyes, the most considerable place between
them and Paris. Here, undoubtedly, there would be communication with the
metropolis. And he knew of a landing place there—the school with its
corner lights. There were also anti-aircraft guns there, as he knew
perfectly well, but he hoped to anticipate their shots. He knew he could
fly directly west without much difficulty and that there was probably no
place in this route with anti-aircraft equipment So far, so good. If
they could only get started. But was he a little north or south of
Troyes or directly east of it? If he flew due west would he come within
the guiding radius of its glare? A mile or so north or south of the town
would make no difference, so far as seeing its composite glare was
concerned, but then he would have to take the wind in one quarter or
another and run across it. And that he wished to avoid. Indeed, he might
have avoided it, by going above the current, out of the wind and into
the clouds. But how could he see the four guiding lights then?

In a word he wished to fly due west and hit his destination as a bullet
hits its mark. Perhaps if he had been an experienced airman he would not
have felt it needful to do this, especially since the weather was
quieter. Perhaps he was a little unnerved by his experience so far. Be
that as it might, one thing he knew from his knowledge of the roads and
the country, gleaned when he was serving as messenger. He knew that
Troyes was thirty or forty miles west of the hill town of Bar-sur-Aube,
but a trifle north of it—about five miles, he thought. _And he
determined how far north he was from Bar-sur-Aube by the distant whistle
of a locomotive._ And the sequel proved, as you shall see, that his ear
was tuned to the fraction of a mile.

I understand that in considering Slade’s rather irregular application
for his brevet papers after this affair, it was submitted by an
instructor lieutenant that he had accomplished his feat by a “trick of
the scout rather than of the aviator.” Did you ever hear such nonsense?
Indeed, if that is so, then all I have to say is, _Three cheers for the
Scouts!_

But to return. Slade and Archer made half a dozen or so “flaming
arrows,” as Archer called them, using the same idea that Slade had used
for his missives. The principal one of these was that in which they used
the nickel time-bar and on this they exerted special inventive effort
Archer’s shirt was wound into a tight wad so as to hold the flames
longer, and was put to soak in the replenished can of gasolene. To one
end of the rod was fastened a note written by Slade, but composed by
both. This momentous and very characteristic missive Archer thinks he
can yet procure by reason of his “being in soft” with certain high
Signal Corps officials. If he succeeds I will certainly bring it home to
you. In any case, this is what it said:

    Two Americans are up here in a Hun machine. Escaped in
    it from Azoudange prison. Have news and messages for
    transmission to Paris. Also Hun airman’s roller-map kept
    from damage. We want to make a landing so don’t shoot.
    If everything is all right give us plenty of lights and
    fire three shots. If any questions, fire shots in Morse
    Code. We’ll answer by dropping more notes. But hurry.
    This is written on American messenger’s dispatch blank.
    Also notice nickel rod is from distance type B American
    motorcycle.

                             Thomas Slade,
                                 Signal Corps Messenger Service.

                             Archibald Archer,
                                 Signal Corps Messenger Service.

Other smaller notes were prepared and “mounted” and it was agreed that
it should be Archer’s duty to drop these conciliatory bombs one after
another into the school field near Troyes. They had purposely refrained
from mentioning that only one of them had escaped in the plane, for that
would have necessitated mentioning their extraordinary meeting and might
have aroused suspicion.

Having prepared these communications and manufactured their “bombs” by
attaching rags from their clothing, they proceeded with what seemed the
all but hopeless task of getting started. In this matter Archer’s
headlight proved invaluable. With its aid an exploration of the
submerged field was made and they found that a short distance from where
they were it sloped up and was quite clear of the water for an area of a
few yards.

To the edge of this higher land they moved the machine, one at either
end of the plane, and set it facing into the wind.

The rain had almost ceased now, but the sky was still thick with little
flaky clouds. Archer climbed into his seat and Slade buckled him in,
giving him part of the oilskin tarpaulin for such protection as it might
afford him. A moment later they were off, gliding along the field until
presently, as Archer says, he saw the smooth black water of the meadows
beneath him and knew that they were gathering height.

“He kept one hand on a leverr,” said Archer, “and watched the compass by
the light of the little electric bulb near it I saw we werre heading
straight west, but I couldn’t talk on account of the noise. I knew we
werre going higherr and higherr, and it scarred me, kind of, that
everything was darrk all around.”

But there was a little bright spot near the compass and the pilot had
his eye fixed on that. Archer said he watched the altimétre and felt
“nerrvous, sorrt of,” as the plane climbed higher and higher into the
black heavens.

-----

Footnote 5:

  Bar-sur-Aube.

Footnote 6:

  He meant, of course, the big aviation school.




                        CHAPTER VI—UP IN THE AIR


The plane was running like a dream at an altitude of 1,800 feet and due
west when they became aware of two tiny lights far below them. Not a
glimmer was there anywhere near them and if Troyes were down there it
was cautious enough to keep itself in the dark. Archer says that Slade
did not speak to him nor even answer when he spoke, and he could only
surmise what the pilot was about. He saw the altimétre register lower
and presently he saw another light, the three forming a triangle. Slade
said something about their being within gun fire range, but Archer could
not hear him clearly and instinctively he kept still.

“I think it’s it,” he finally heard Slade say.

Archer did not fully understand why Slade thought it was “it.” He
confesses that he was “nerrvous and flusterred” and did not dare to ask
questions.

“Get your stuff ready,” he heard Slade say. “Do you see another light?
There must be a patrol out—that’s lucky.”

As we know, Troyes was one of the places which Slade had often visited
upon his official errands, and there he had once or twice met Archer. So
we may assume that he knew something of the neighboring aviation school
and field with its guiding corner lights. If there had been no patrol
out these lights would not have been burning. At a second’s notice any
one or all of them could be turned into a giant finger to probe the
heavens, and Slade knew this.

In retelling, as well as I can, from Archer’s fragmentary narrative, the
tale of their heroic fight, I wish not to minimize the element of luck,
nor, upon the other hand, to draw upon my imagination. If I had Slade’s
story I could write from the standpoint of the pilot, but as it is I am
writing from the standpoint of his anxious companion who did his little
part, kept discreetly silent and waited in suspense.

That Slade should have flown due west upon the strength of an original
calculation and come directly over this place was remarkable and greatly
to his credit. But he was mistaken in supposing that there would be a
glare from the lights of the town and it was a piece of sheer luck that
the corner lights of the big field were burning, for the night was not
propitious for patrols.

Archer had just spied a fourth light, completing a square, and was
dipping his tightly wound shirt into the gasolene, when a long, dusky
column moved across the darkness, hesitated, groped, moved toward them,
then away again, and then—there they were in a field of brightness and
he saw Slade as he had not seen him in nearly a year.

“He looked olderr and his big mouth was shut tight as if he was mad, but
I could see how his two hands that held the controls were steady, just
like that (he gripped one of the bars of the bed to show me), and I
could even see the ring on his fingerr just as plain as day.”

A shot rang out and the plane shook “just like a dog shakes himself.” He
saw Slade yank back the larger lever and reach below him for another.
For a few seconds he was pushing and pulling—the terrible shaking
ceased—darkness.

Archer was trembling like a leaf.

“A miss is as good as a mile,” he heard Slade say. “Don’t get rattled,
she’s stable, drop your note, quick! I’m going to get out of this!”

It seemed to Archer but half a second and then the four lights were far
away, so quickly is distance multiplied by the slightest movement in the
air. It seemed now that the square was all askew and the odd fancy
occurred to him that the shock of that gun away down there had knocked
it out of shape.

“See it?” he heard Slade say without any trace of excitement.

Archer looked and saw far below them and some distance to the west the
little flickering light of the descending torch, growing smaller—
smaller—until it disappeared. He tried to determine whether it was
within the radius of the square but that was quite impossible, for the
square kept changing, and as a sort of vent to his suspense he watched
it, expecting every second to find himself in another glare of light,
and then to go tumbling down through space. Now those far-off lights
formed a diamond, now they seemed to form almost a straight line, then
opened into a crazy sort of square and again looked like a part of the
Big Dipper; and the whimsical thought came to Archer that they were
above the stars and looking down on them.

He knew, of course, that these odd effects were caused by Slade’s
manouvering, but he had never seen such effects produced while riding on
an express train or any other sort of conveyance, and the experience
fascinated him much more than did the very simple and obvious devices
for controlling their craft. “I felt as if I didn’t belong to the worrld
at all,” he said.

He does not know how long they manouvered, nor how much area they
covered in doing so, because there is hardly such a thing as distance in
an airplane. An aviator may go five miles to turn around. “All I know
is,” he said, “that pretty soon I saw something down therre, but not
just below me, just like a picture comes on the movie screen when the
audience is all in the darrk. I saw the buildings and everything and
long lines, white kind of, like a baseball field, only the buildings
were all built slanting-ways, like, as if the wind that was blowin’ a
little while before had kind of pushed them over one way. _Believe me_,
I’ve sat up in the top galleries at a good many movie shows, but I
neverr, neverr, neverr saw such a big, clearr screen.... ‘Slady,’ I
shouted, ‘look at those buildings, will you, how they’rre all fallen
overr sideways—’ ‘I don’t know which one of us is a bigger fool,’ Slady
answered, pulling on the stick that moves the sideways thing in back and
grabbin’ the otherr one that he called the broomstick. ‘Look at ’em,
will you!’ I shouted. ‘They’rre built crazy, or something!’ ‘_You’re_
built crazy or something,’ Slady said, ‘look at ’em now.’ And just then
they straightened all up like regular buildings, long barrns, sorrt of,
and the white lines made a big square, all nice and even like. ‘I swept
’em straight with the broomstick,’ Slady says, in that soberr way of
his, and just then the whole place tipped up like as if it was going to
spill all the buildings off it and everything was all crooked again.
‘Have a hearrt, Slady!’ I shouted. ‘You’ll spill the whole concarrned
village if you pull that thing again!’”

“Did Slade laugh?” I asked.

“No, he didn’t. He just said he was a fool to tell them to fire three
shots when he might have known that if they believed the message they’d
just illuminate the field. ‘Maybe they’ll fire ’em anyway,’ he said. ‘I
hope they don’t fire ’em up herre,’ I told him. He didn’t pay any
attention to me, only kept scowlin’ like he always did when he was
especially interested and kept his hands and feet both busy.

“Pretty soon therre were three shots and I guess they knew down therre
that everything was all right because when we asked for three shots,
that showed we were greenhorns, all right. But they gave ’em anyway.
‘What’ll I do now?’ I said to Slady, for I was feeling mighty glad that
we’d got there and that everything was all right. ‘Don’t do anything
except shut up,’ he says, so I just watched him like mamma’s good little
boy while he pulled and pushed and I could see from the altimetrrre that
we werre going down.

“We werren’t over the bright field at all then—he’d got way overr to the
west of it or the south of it—I don’t know—and the whole business was up
slanting ways again—way up. Then all of a sudden the long buildings
began to straighten out and be theirr right shapes again almost, and
then just like that (he clapped his hands with a resounding smack by way
of illustration) therre they werre away overr at the otherr end of the
great big field standing as straight as soldierrs and as squarre as a
choppin’-block, and us coming straight towarrds them, and there was a
company of Frenchies all lined up waitin’, maybe on account of its
seemin’ sorrt of like a _kamarad_ game, and there was fellerrs running
out of those long buildings pell-mell towarrds us and it was a regularr
kind of a circus. I guess we hit terra-cotta[7] too near the buildings
maybe, but anyway it was all right. A lieutenant climbed up and took a
squint at us and says, ‘Good shot,’ and then there was a crowd all
around us—fellerrs that had been asleep, I guess, and a lot morre. The
firrst thing _I_ did when I got a chance I went overr and took a look at
those long barrns—dorrmitories, they were, and I said to a sarrgeant
that was therre, gaping all overr his face, I says, ‘I want to make
surre these things ain’t built like accordions, ’cause, _believe me_,
you can twist ’em every which way when you’rre up in the airrrr!’”

“See if you can’t say air,” I said, smiling as he sat back in his wheel
chair, quite exhausted.

“Airrrrre,” he repeated.

“Good!” I laughed.

-----

Footnote 7:

  If he heard any such word as this used, it was probably _terra firma_.




                      CHAPTER VII—CHANGING SCENES


I have told you of the last part of this astonishing flight in Archer’s
own words, as well as I could transcribe them from my shorthand notes,
because I think it gives a very good idea of his own impressions. How
Tom Slade felt throughout that exciting night I can only conjecture. You
knew him and I did not. Imperturbable, resourceful, strong-willed, a
little dash of grim humor (at least, in his relations with the
irrepressible Archer), and with the spirit of adventure born in him, I
can form some sort of picture of him in my own mind—the scowl, the big
mouth, the towhead—but at best he is something of a mystery to me. I can
fancy him on that wild night, one hand upon his stabilizing control, the
other on the handle by which he communicated his dogged will to the
rudders, a keen eye always fixed upon his altimétre or his compass.
Sometimes I fancy that I can hear that “soberr, kind of” voice of his.
But as I say, you knew him and I did not.

I must now tell you of the practical results of his deed. You know
already of the movements which followed immediately upon the discovery
of his warning messages, and if you have read the papers I suppose you
know of the iron wall which the Germans found confronting them. Archer’s
messages were opened and read and such parts of them as required
transmission were wired on to General Pershing, who was then in Paris.

But these, important though they were, are not a part of my story. You
will recall that when the souvenir-loving Archer first inspected the Hun
plane in quest of booty, his longing fingers lingered upon something
which looked like a shade roller, hung before the pilot’s seat and which
Slade had wound in oilskin. It was typical of Slade that he should have
thought to do this even in the excitement of his escape, and this little
act of foresightedness and caution was destined to have far-reaching and
memorable consequences in which he was to be involved.

They spent the balance of the night in the barracks of this aviation
centre and, according to Archer, were treated royally by the student
airmen, who, I suspect, found him an amusing youngster for several of
them gave him a sentence to say which he repeated to their great
delight. It ran something like this: _Roaring, raging, rampant,
rambunctious rhinoceroses ran round rugged rocks, recklessly raising
ridiculous reverberating rows._ If he repeated it to them as he did to
me, it must have been very entertaining. He also sang them “Peterr
Porkerr’s Pig,” a ballad of the Catskills, I suppose, which won him
great applause. He says the airmen slept in the long dormitories, in
rows on either side, and that it was just like camping to be among them.
In the morning he and Slade watched some ground flights, made by
beginners in machines with “clipped wings,” which could not leave the
ground. They wriggled around this way and that, he said, and were very
funny—like a “barrnyarrd full of chickens.” Several new men came in from
their brevet, cross-country flights during the morning and were loudly
acclaimed, he said. It was fun to see them chase each other round the
field.

That afternoon Archer went into Troyes to have a new cycle issued to
him, and said goodbye to the comrade whom he was destined never to see
again. Slade, he said, was to remain there for another day while the
instructor (Lieutenant Tanner) endeavored to have him transferred from
the messenger corps into this branch of the service. He thought it would
not be difficult in the circumstances, and surely it ought not to have
been.

And thus Archibald Archer passes out of the story. He remained my cot
neighbor here in the hospital until the day before yesterday, when he
was discharged as cured. He knew nothing of Slade after their parting at
the aviation school and it was not until he became a patient in the
hospital and saw the mended place in the roof that he learned of his
former comrade’s having been there before him and of how the stolid
partner of their great exploit had later gone to his last adventure high
among the clouds. But of the intimate circumstances of this he knew
nothing.

You will think it rather a coincidence that all three of us should have
been patients in this same hospital, but such things are not unusual
here in France. I could tell you of four brothers who met in one of the
big hospitals in Paris, and of a father and son who met on sentry duty
when one supposed the other to be in Mexico—such a kaleidoscope is this
great war.

I began by being merely amused at Archibald Archer but I came to be
greatly interested in him and to like him immensely. He is the kind of
young fellow who is putting pep into this war, and I never dreamed until
after he went away how keenly we should miss him. Even the “cross red
nurses,” as he called them, who frequently had occasion to chide him,
wish that he would be brought back with a _slight_ wound. I shall never
forget his souvenirs and his apple-eating and the good old up-country
roll of his R’s. If his luck doesn’t change (and I don’t think it will
ever change) and he gets home safely, I mean to hunt him up on his farm
in the Catskills and hear him sing “Peterrr Porrkerr’s Pig” once again.
If all goes well, I promise you a meeting with him and you can put him
into one of your famous stories if you wish to. It has been pretty
lonesome here these last two days, and I thank goodness that I am
leaving the hospital myself on Friday.




                       CHAPTER VIII—THE OTHER GUN


I am writing this in Paris where I came to rest after seeing the boys
straighten out the last wrinkle in the old Marne salient. It’s almost
like a tight-rope now—a bee line from Rheims right through the woods
north of Campiegne.

The doctors sent me back because of my cough; the after effect, they
say, of being gassed. I am told that if this troublesome cough does not
presently subside it will be desirable for me to seek another
climate—the mountains of Switzerland, for instance. I am hoping that
this will not be necessary and meanwhile I shall continue my tale of Tom
Slade. For I have dug up one or two more things for you out of his
checkered career.

Each morning I come out and sit on the Boulevard, and do my writing in
the intervals of watching the sights. The benches are filled with
crippled soldiers and there is a little French girl who comes along
nearly every day and gives us each a flower. Nannette, her name is, and
she is the only one left of a family of nine who were kidnapped and
butchered by the Germans in Senlis. She wears wooden shoes and I listen
for their clatter each morning. Directly across from my favorite seat is
the wreck of a house which was bombed, and the soldiers are always
picking up odds and ends to take home. It brings back fond memories of
Archibald Archer.

Well, when I left the hospital at Epernay I had two things, and one was
this cough. The other was the name of Lieutenant Tanner, of the flying
field near Troyes. It seemed that here was the likeliest means of
finding out something of Slade’s subsequent career, so I visited the
place on a pass and talked with the lieutenant. I found him agreeable
enough but rather brief. I suspect that he does not greatly admire us
“knights of the fountain pen.” He told me, among other things, that
Slade’s landing had been “amateurish” but quite remarkable. He said that
Slade took a “low angle grade” or something of that sort, for to tell
you the truth, I don’t know what he was talking about.

They were putting the men through their training in pretty rapid order
then in anticipation of the final scene, and physical fitness and
natural aptitude and daring once established, the rest was easy. Slade
received a rather perfunctory training at this place, made an altogether
successful brevet flight (his real test was the flight I’ve told you
of), and was transferred to the airdrome near Chalons on the Marne,
where he was kept at the noncombatant work of aerial messenger. If he
had any interesting experiences in this branch of the service I have not
been able to learn them, but of the remarkable incident which resulted
in his being taken to the hospital at Epernay I have authentic
information, and of this I shall now tell you.

I have been at some pains to learn the full story of this singular
business and my information is derived from several sources. I will
mention these now so that the story, as I tell it, may not be cumbered
with continual reference to my authorities.

First, there is Captain Whitloss of the airdrome near Chalons, who was
Slade’s superior and whom I cannot sufficiently thank for his
hospitality and courtesy to a mere fountain-pen warrior! Next, there is
an old Frenchman of the name of Godefroi Grigou and his daughter,
Jeanne, aged seventeen, who at the time this thing happened lived in the
village of Talois, some fifteen miles beyond the German line as it ran
then. In the spreading of the advance which began with General Foch’s
counter offensive on the Marne, this village was brought within the
allied lines and I have visited it (or what there is left of it) and
talked with old Godefroi and his daughter.

The girl speaks English with a pretty, broken accent, having learned it,
so she told me; from an American who was in the German service. I think
he must have been a German-American, for he spoke German also. The only
name they knew him by was Captain Toby. He was in the German aerial
observation corps, and was for some time prior to the events which I am
going to record, domiciled in the simple home of these poor people, who
were forced to share their meagre fare with him and pay him homage. I
have never seen this creature, but I understand that he has many black
marks against his name, and that it will fare ill with him if he ever
falls into allied hands.

I think there were never two happier people than old Godefroi and his
young daughter since their delivery from German arrogance and
oppression. Their poor little thatched cottage is now ten miles within
General Foch’s iron line, and here I spent one of the pleasantest
afternoons I have known since I came to France.

From these three persons, then, I learned the substance of the story
which I am about to tell and which I shall call The Episode of the Other
Gun. Even the conversations are substantially authentic and if I have
filled up the gaps here and there with a little of the story-teller’s
material, I think I can assure you that I have held a tight rein upon my
imagination, and have not introduced any matter save what is obviously
suggested by the facts.

One afternoon, as Slade alighted after a flight to Neufchateau he was
instructed to report to the captain’s headquarters where he found two
officers connected with the secret information service. Having made
certain that he was the right Thomas Slade, they asked him whether he
had heard of the great advantage to the allies which had accrued from a
study of the roller map of the Hun plane in which he had escaped.

“I never heard anything more about it,” said Slade.

They told him that matters of the greatest importance had been revealed
by this map, such as the location of airdromes and ammunition dumps,
official headquarters, etc., and, most important of all, the positions,
or rather the neighborhood, of two isolated pieces of mammoth artillery
which had been pounding away at Chalons near by. One of these, they
said, had been located near Tagnoni and put out of business. The other
was still active and creating frightful havoc in Chalons and neighboring
places. Its locality was marked by a cross upon the German airman’s map
and a reproduction of this section of the map was shown to Slade. It
showed Talois in the hilly country about twelve or fifteen miles behind
the enemy lines.

“It has been decided,” said one of the officers, “to send a flier to
this place in the plane which you brought from Azoudange, to reconnoiter
and report, if possible, the precise location of this piece. Specific
instructions are ready and if you care to volunteer for this service
your offer will be considered. You speak German, I believe?”

“Kind of,” said Slade.

“You were in the German camp how long?”

“About a month.”

“You come of German people?”

“No, I don’t,” said Slade, “but if I did it wouldn’t be my fault.”

The officer looked at him with a sort of careful scrutiny from which I
infer (and so does Captain Whitloss) that they thought he had somewhat
the appearance of a German and were glad of it. They explained that
individuals were not detailed for such hazardous expeditions except upon
their volunteering; that they gave him this opportunity because he had
brought the Hun plane into allied territory, because he had been among
Germans during his captivity, and because he spoke German. They said
nothing about his personal bravery, for they do not do this in the army.

“Do I just have to say I volunteer?” said Slade.

“If you wish to go.”

“Then I say it.”

“Very well; your instructions will be delivered to you by Captain
Whitloss tomorrow and you will be held at the field until then.”

Slade saluted and left the room. Throughout the balance of that day he
showed not the slightest ruffle in his stolid demeanor and in the
morning he wandered about the field watching the practice of his
comrades. Once only did he speak to anyone and that was to ask Captain
Whitloss if this errand was in the nature of a spy’s work.

“That’s how they’ll treat you if they find you out,” said the captain.

“I don’t mean over there,” said Slade. “I’m not thinking about that; but
over here.”

“Well, not exactly,” said the captain, which seemed to satisfy him.

In the early afternoon the Hun plane, which must have recalled vivid
memories to Slade, circled over the field and made a landing. Its pilot,
one of the aviators from the neighborhood of Troyes, brought Slade’s
instructions, which I have been permitted to see. I think I may
reproduce them here, particularly as the episode is now a thing of the
past and moreover you will not see this until I return to America.

The messenger will commit these instructions to memory and, having
repeated them accurately to his commanding officer, will sign and return
them to such officer. He will then hold himself in readiness for further
orders.

Upon receiving these he shall, at a time to be designated, fly to
Suippes where materials and final orders will be given him.

Upon his final orders for departure he shall proceed as follows: Fly
directly northward from Suippes, under safe conduct, and cross the lines
at St Estey. From this point he shall follow the line of the road which
runs directly northward to Vouziers. Both road and town, it is believed,
are sufficiently indicated in low flight. From Vouziers he shall follow
the line of road running eastward into the hills. Village of Talois is
first village eastward on this road. Continuing directly eastward over
wooded hill he shall locate whitewashed, thatched-roof cottage on road
at edge of woods and make landing in field adjacent. Inquire at cottage
for M. Grigou and present credentials. If hospitality is refused he
shall return forthwith to Suippes. Otherwise, he shall remain and spend
following day in exploration of east slope of wooded hill west of
cottage. Spend day following in exploration of west slope. Spend second
day following in such further explorations as previous explorations
indicate. If gun is located, he shall note its position with regard to
slope, neighboring contours and such landmarks and geographic facts as
may reduce the area of its approximate position from Allied lines. On
the night of third day he shall positively return to base at Chalons.

Subjoined to this order was a list of items which might be more or less
helpful in locating his destination, and so forth.

Notwithstanding the very explicit character of these instructions, it is
plain that they left much to the flier’s judgment and resource. I
suspect that Slade’s superiors were in possession of secret information
which they did not think it necessary to give the volunteer, but which
might have afforded him some reassurance in so hazardous a trip. For one
thing, I understand it was known at the time that the news of the
ridiculous loss of the Hun machine had been suppressed within the enemy
lines. Whether this was the work of the authorities of the prison camp
in collusion with the German flier, I do not know, but enemy prisoners
(even officers) taken by the French and Americans professed complete
ignorance of this inglorious loss of one of their machines. Perhaps it
was this that determined the use of the Hun plane in this delicate
business.

Captain Whitloss says that Slade repeated his instructions word for word
in a “kind of dull, monotonous tone” correcting himself even in the most
trifling details, then signed the formidable documents in a scrawling
hand. I saw this signature. It was written in a firm, but very careless,
hand and read simply Tom Slade. After that he played checkers until
three in the afternoon when, upon verbal orders, he left the airdrome.
(Orders regarding time of departure are seldom known in advance.)

Alighting in Suippes, he was outfitted with the shabby garment of a
German flier—remnant, I suppose, of some hapless enemy captive. He
showed no surprise to find here that his “credentials” consisted merely
of a tarnished brass button.

“Will I give him this?” was all he said.

Suippes is (or was) just a couple of miles behind the line and here
Slade remained through the early part of the evening, pitching ball
until it was too dark and then watching the boys playing cards in the
Y. M. C. A. hut. A little after ten o’clock he was ordered out upon his
perilous errand.

Of the flight itself I know nothing, for I never saw Slade, and he was
never thereafter able to make a satisfactory report. But the proof of
the pudding is in the eating.

The night was crisp and clear with a strong breeze blowing out of the
north, and the sky thick with stars. It was the same night that Aiken
fell to his death from a height of nearly 3,000 feet and the descent of
his machine, I am told, was plainly seen. So the conditions attending
Slade’s departure were propitious for his purpose. Indeed, if they had
not been so his start would have been deferred, I suppose. At 10.25 he
was reported passing over St. Estey, flying low, his propeller making
that distinctive intermittent whir which is characteristic of German
aircraft. St. Estey is right in the “front of the front,” just within
the first line trenches. It is told that a group of German prisoners
there at the time rejoiced that one of their fliers was getting back
home safely and that one of them raised his hand toward the plane and
called, “Prosit!”

So Tom Slade went forth upon his dangerous business with the best of
good wishes on the part of his enemies!




                    CHAPTER IX—MONSIEUR LE CAPITAINE


It lacked a half-hour of midnight when old Grigou hobbled out of his
doorway and looked up into the clear, star-studded night. There was no
other house in sight, only the shell-torn fields to the east, and to the
west the dark, wooded hill frowning upon the poor, isolated abode. Even
Talois was over the hill and Mademoiselle Jeanne was afraid to go there
because there were dead men to be seen along the lone path through the
woods and swaggering, leering Prussians in the village. One dead man in
particular she was afraid of because he sat up against a tree near the
path and was always grinning at her.

But the person whom she feared the most of all was Monsieur le
Capitaine. She did not know much about Monsieur le Capitaine excepting
that he had come from far-off America to help the Fatherland. And the
chief way in which he helped the Fatherland seemed to be by sprawling in
their little house and eating their food and ordering them about. She
wondered why anyone should have come all the way from America to help
the Fatherland.

He was very efficient and very mysterious, was Monsieur le Capitaine.
Sometimes he came in “ze flying machine,” sometimes on his feet. Once a
small dirigible had landed in the shell-torn field and taken him away.
He used often to go to Rheims and be gone for a week or more. Once
Jeanne had flared up and denounced him and his friends for wrecking
Rheims Cathedral and he had told her that this was nothing; that in
America the people made a practice of destroying the cathedrals of the
Indians. He told her that England was to blame for everything and that
she ought to be glad that some brave men from America were helping poor,
lonely, downtrodden Germany to thrash England. He told her that in
America the national pastime was hanging black men and that all the
lamp-posts in New York had black men hanging from them. Jeanne had
shuddered at that.

Whatever in the world Monsieur le Capitaine was about, he was very much
engrossed in it.

Neither Jeanne nor her poor old father had ever dared to ask him why he
found their remote home so desirable. Perhaps that was the reason—its
remoteness. About all that Jeanne really knew was that Monsieur le
Capitaine knew all about “ze ships, when zey will go,” and that he had
something to do with a balloon with two black crosses on it. She had
always inferred that these two black crosses were a mark of special
honor or distinction. Chiefly she wished, for her poor old father’s
sake, that he would not drink their precious wine. If he would only let
the wine alone, he could have ten black crosses for all she cared....

So you will readily appreciate the feelings with which Jeanne heard her
father calling to her from outside the house.

“Jeanne! Jeanne! Monsieur le Capitaine est retourne!”

Jeanne emerged with a look of inquiring disappointment upon her troubled
face and sure enough, there was the whir, whir, whir, whir overhead and
a dark object circling against the darker background of sky.

“What matter, papa,” she said resignedly in French; “for sometime he
must come. So, maybe, he will soon go. So? We shall think of his going,
never of his coming. So, papa?”

Her father put his arm about her. “This is my brave little daughter,” he
said. “But come, he will wish wine.”

The girl did not stir, however, but remained there with her father’s arm
about her, wistfully following the dark object with her eyes. Now it
went far away and disappeared, now came back again. Now it came very
low, now ascended. Now it was directly overhead, then of a sudden it was
coming straight toward them, silently and very low, as if it must be
another machine altogether....

Out of it climbed Tom Slade of the Flying Corps, and shaking down his
heavy garments as he walked he approached the two, his goggles up on his
forehead like a prosy old schoolmaster.

“I zink it ees ze capitaine,” said the girl uncertainly.

“I ain’t even a lieutenant,” said Tom Slade. “Is this Mr. Grigou?”

Upon the old man’s acknowledgement he presented his trinket of a
credential, that talisman which has won food and shelter for many a sore
beset fugitive, in the humble, devastated homes of northern France—a
button from the uniform of a French soldier in the old Franco-Prussian
war. No compromising note of introduction, bringing possible peril to
its holder, could have been so instrumental as this little memento,
speaking the language of hallowed sentiment. Your Uncle Samuel knows the
value of these little buttons.

I must not linger upon Slade’s personal intercourse with these people. I
believe that the information service knew something of conditions there
and knew that “Monsieur le Capitaine” was temporarily absent. It would
seem to explain the very explicit instructions for Slade’s prompt
return. I fancy I can detect another hand in this whole business and I
think that Slade was merely the active figure in the enterprise. In any
case, it was pretty close work, as they say. I am certain that M. Grigou
did not expect Slade. The ways of the information service are dark and
mysterious....

Slade was welcomed by this sturdy old Frenchman and his daughter and
partook of a late supper with them, the while he spoke of his errand. He
had made no attempt, of course, to hide his plane and Jeanne said that
he appeared not the least disconcerted at the possibility of the
captain’s returning unexpectedly, which, however, she thought unlikely.
They knew he had gone to Berlin and he had said he would not return for
a couple of weeks or more.

Yet for all that, and making full allowance for the possibility of the
information service knowing of this mysterious person’s whereabouts and
the duration of his absence, there is something very striking to me in
Slade’s sitting there, his airplane outside, chatting with these people
with apparently no more concern than if he had looked in for a social
call. Perhaps he was safer than he knew.

“But he does not have ze—caire,” said Jeanne, throwing out her hands
with a fine suggestion of recklessness. “You see? So. He say if one man
come, why he should caire! Oi, la, la, I say to him!”

A very singular thing occurred that night.

Naturally enough, they fell to speaking of the absent captain and in the
course of their conversation Jeanne asked Slade if it were true that
negroes were hanging from all the lamp posts of New York and if it were
true that the American people were really for Germany, but that
President Wilson sided with England and so made them fight against the
Fatherland.

Slade told her that these were all lies and that he would like to come
face to face with the man, whether German or German-American, who
uttered such nonsense.

“He say ziss is all—how you say—nonsense,” Jeanne told me. “He will not
be mad, because ziss is nonsense. So. I tell him all zese sings—only he
laugh. Lies—nonsense—and he laugh.”

Apparently he had rallied her for believing all this extravagant stuff
from the curious German mind. “He tell me I am so much at ease—ziss is
why I believe.” I suppose he told her that she was _easy_. He told her
also that he would bring her some elephants and tigers from the
neighboring woods next day and so the talk passed off in pleasant
banter.

What, then, was the surprise of both Jeanne and her father when, on
showing their visitor to the little room upstairs which he was to
occupy, he strode over to the old chest of drawers which stood in a
corner and taking up a photograph of a man in a sumptuous German
uniform, demanded to know if that was the captain.

“I tell him yess,” said the girl, “and how he make me take ze picture.
Ziss I do not like to have, but I am so afraid, I must take eet. So I
put it here—you see? Maybe he ask.”

Slade, according to her, took the picture, looked at it with an
expression of rage, tore it into pieces and threw it on the floor. “So
he talk low, too, and say mooch—vere rude,” she said.

To put the whole thing in a few plain words, he was evidently siezed
with ungovernable rage, declared he would kill the man upon sight for a
lying, sneaking wretch and hoped that he might meet him there and have
done with it. The girl was greatly surprised and very much frightened,
and her father also when she translated Slade’s talk for him. Her
imperfect English was not always clear to me, but I gathered that
Slade’s outburst was such as to shock her and it presented him in a new
light to me. No doubt, these poor people had been thoroughly cowed by
the Germans and feared the consequence of any harm which might befall
their arrogant tyrant of the two black crosses.

“He’ll have a black cross over his grave if I ever see him!” Slade had
muttered when he heard of this evident badge of honor.

“Even when we leave him,” Jeanne told me, “he sit on ze side of ze bed
and look—so hard and his mouth—big—eet ees shut like ziss.” And she
compressed her pretty lips with a very feeble look of grim and murderous
wrath. Thus they left him, a stranger in the enemy country, with perils
all about him, for the little rest which he might get before his
dangerous business of the morrow.

Now this episode struck me as being very peculiar. In the first place, I
have it from Archer that Slade was of an imperturbable, stolid nature,
and not given to fits of temper. Also, on hearing of the captain
downstairs he had laughed at the girl for believing the stories the
German had told her, and treated the mysterious tyrant’s talk like the
trash it was. Why, then, should he have flown into such a fury when he
saw the picture?

I thought a good deal about it after I left old Grigou’s cottage and the
explanation that I hit on was this: that Slade rather liked the girl and
was angry to think of her having this German’s picture. Then I thought
of what Archer had said about Slade’s not having any use for “girrls.”
Well, at least, I thought, Slade was rather erratic. Perhaps it was only
a trifling matter, but it puzzled me and it puzzles me still.

No matter.

There is a little oasis of scouting and woodcraft in this bloody desert
of war which will show you Tom Slade in a familiar light—as you used to
know him at your beloved Temple Camp. And when you think of your dead
comrade of the good old days I am sure you will wish to think of him as
he trod the forest depths next day in quest of the iron murderer that
lay concealed there.

I mean to recount this to you now.




                  CHAPTER X—THE SOUVENIR OF SOUVENIRS


If Slade had any suspicion that “Monsieur le Capitaine” was directly
interested in the great gun which was concealed thereabout, he did not
say so to old Grigou and his daughter. They, at least, knew nothing of
any such gun in their neighborhood, but they told him of frightful
explosions which made their cottage “shiver.” They seemed to think that
such things were common along the entire front and they knew of houses
which had been shaken down by distant explosions. Slade asked them if
they had heard any of these explosions lately and they told him they had
not—not for several days. “Only he shake his head—vere wise—so,” Jeanne
volunteered.

He said afterward that he had counted on the noise of the monster to
guide him to it but that he supposed his visit was in an interval of
disuse caused by the ever-increasing scarcity of ammunition.

Early in the morning he set forth with a little snack which Jeanne had
prepared for him and following the woods path was soon lost in the hilly
forest. I have myself seen this forest at its edge and how any human
being could hope to locate a particular object in it is beyond my
comprehension. The woods path which ends near Grigou’s cottage follows a
meandering course over the densely wooded summit and winding down the
western slope develops into the single street of Talois village. I
should say it might be five miles over the hill as the crow flies and
more than ten by the path.

It was long after dark when Slade returned, very weary and apparently
discouraged. He had seen nothing but dead men in the woods, he said. Not
a sign was there of any open way along which artillery might be
hauled—not so much as a wagon track. He was in a very ill mood and
Jeanne tried to console him by saying that as long as he tried it was
not disgrace if he failed.

“Sure it’s a disgrace if you fail,” he answered in a surly tone.

“I tell him ziss is no—what you call—deesgrace.”

Then he made one of those puzzling observations of his—the kind which
Archer was always quoting.

“You can’t disgrace yourself either without disgracing a lot of other
people. If you could it wouldn’t be so bad. That’s why I wouldn’t want
the place where I live disgraced—or the whole air service, either.”

Jeanne apparently did not appreciate this line of reasoning and probably
thought Slade rather a queer fellow.

The next morning at daylight he set forth again and returned long after
dark, dog tired. He had wandered over the west slope of the hill down as
far as the village where he had talked with Germans, making his
inquiries as plain as he dared. The sum total of the information he had
gained was just nothing at all and he returned with the gloomy
realization of the needle-in-the-haystack character of his quest. I
suspect that Slade was not a good loser—perhaps because he was not
accustomed to losing.

“I got one more day,” he said doggedly.

The next day he carried his explorations whither his fancy took him and
hoped for luck. This hill, so called, is in reality a sort of jumble of
hill. Deep gullies intervened to balk the traveller and the undergrowth
and secondary slopes, if I may so call them, make an orderly exploration
quite impossible. I do not see how it could have been otherwise. That he
should stumble upon a piece of artillery in all that litter of
wilderness would have been sheer luck. What he sought was a road of
communication between this unknown monster and the village. But there
was no road. He returned a little after dark in great dejection.

“He will not spik to me,” said the girl. “I tell him _so_—they are
crazee—how you say—to send him. He will not even spik to me—or drink ze
wine.”

Slade was always punctilious in obeying orders; he had the dogged,
mechanical submission of a German in that regard. He went out in the
field, hauled the plane about, tied a strip of surgical bandage, which
he always carried, to the end of a stick, and held it up to note the
direction of the wind.

It was at that moment that the cheerful, sympathetic French girl, seeing
his dejection, uttered the simple words which were to have such
momentous consequences.

“See—wait—I will gif you ze souvenir—so you remember.”

I do not know whether Slade’s mood permitted him a smile in memory of
Archibald Archer at the mention of that familiar word. But I do know
that he answered (rather rudely, I am afraid) that he didn’t want any
souvenir.

I like to think how great things are sometimes brought about by the turn
of a hair—how Columbus, for instance, all but turned back in the fateful
moment when land was sighted. And I pay my tribute here to that frail,
brave, cheerful little maid in devastated France, who all unknowingly
muzzled that big gun forever. And here’s to the Boy Scouts of America
too and all their precious lore of woodcraft.

In another five seconds Tom Slade would have been flying southward,
defeated, chagrined, ashamed. But Jeanne came running out in her pretty,
cheery way and handed him a charred splinter of wood.

“You know how I tell you ze house it shake when ziss beeg noise—here—you
see? Ziss come zen out of ze sky where you fly up. You take ziss to
Americ’ for souvenir—you see? Vive l’Amerique!”

Tom Slade held this splintered fragment down by the tiny bulb which
illumined his compass.

“It flew here, you mean?”

“Out of ze sky—so.”

There was a moment’s pause, she told me—a fateful moment.

“I never knew that grew here; it’s swamp larch.” He smelled of it and
scratched it with his fingers. “Hmmm.” It was charred and left his
fingers black and sticky. “Hmmm,” he said again, “it’s swamp larch all
right—resin just like cedar—hmmm.” He held it close under the little
light and examined it more carefully. He turned it this way and that. He
scraped off some of the charred, pungent resin, and sniffed it. He bit a
splinter off and chewed it a little. “Hmm.”

She was pleased at his interest and said something which I think was
very pretty. “Now you will forgive me about ze picture?”

Tom Slade, of the Flying Corps, turned off the tiny light, shut off his
gas, and climbed down from his seat. It was the airman who climbed into
that machine. It was the scout who got out of it.

“I know where the gun is now,” he said simply. “A minute ago you said,
‘Vive l’Amerique!’ Now _I_ say, ‘Vive la France! Vive Jeanne!’”

I am glad that at least he had the gallantry to say that.




                      CHAPTER XI—AIRMAN AND SCOUT


Slade made his report of this business while lying in the Epemay
Hospital. This I have not seen, but Captain Whitloss has told me of it.
By reason of the character of Slade’s mission, neither he nor anyone
else talked of it and even the surgeons and nurses knew nothing of his
late exploit, more than that he had sustained a serious injury while
flying.

“As soon as I saw that piece of wood,” he told the captain, “I knew it
was swamp larch. That always grows near water and usually high up. I
thought it must have been right close to the gun, in front of it,
because it caught some of the fire. I could even smell the powder. I
thought maybe it was a part of the camouflaging in front. Anyway it was
torn off a limb, anyone could see that, and was near enough to get
burned. In scouting they always tell things by signs. She picked it up
when it fell off the thatch roof and they had to chuck a couple of
buckets of water up there because the thatch was starting. She couldn’t
pick it up at first, it was so hot.

“I knew there wasn’t any larch at all where I’d been ’cause if there had
been I’d have seen it—wouldn’t I?”

The captain said he supposed so.

“There was only one thing to do and that was to start with the brook and
follow it up. I had to start back that night under signed orders so
there wasn’t much time. I knew if there were any swamp larches I’d find
them that way—see? And then I’d find out how a chunk like that could get
torn off and all charred, and be blown two or three miles maybe. I knew
what to do then ’cause I had something to go by. That’s a scout sign,
kind of.”

He certainly made good use of his scout sign. In less than two minutes,
they tell me, he had picked up his trail at the little trickle of a
spring whence they got their drinking water. It came down between rocks,
a mere dribble of water, as if from a leaky faucet. I saw this, what
there was to it, and how he managed to trace it through all its
intricate windings, I am sure I do not know.

I tried to follow it up myself and got just fifteen feet by a tape
measure when it ran under a flat rock.

This trickle led him, as he thought it would, to the brook from which it
branched off. He had crossed this during the day, but, of course, had
not followed it, for there had been no reason to do so. It led him for
about three miles through a densely wooded section where he kept a
continual watch for larches and cedars. But there were none to be seen
and no point of elevation commanding a prospect to the south.

He at last reached a place where the brook ran far below him between
rocks and he followed its course through this ravine with great
difficulty until he came to a point where it appeared to emerge out of a
sort of cave or tunnel and he climbed down to examine it.

He found that the ravine which he had been following branched out of
this larger ravine and that this latter had been roofed with boards and
logs and brush, forming a sort of covered tunnel, which was completely
concealed save at this point of juncture where the brook emerged into
the narrower way. He was now hot upon the trail though he probably gave
no sign of excitement.

He judged by the stars, he said, that this covered ravine ran north and
south and if it did and ran fairly straight, its northern end would be
somewhere in the neighborhood of the railroad village of Le Chesne, or
at least near the line of trail thereabout, while its southern end would
be at the steep slope of the hills southward.

He entered the passage and found that the brook trickled along here not
much wider than in the narrower ravine, and that the bed of the passage
was hard and fairly flat. He reached above him and pressed against the
artificial covering. Cross-pieces had been wedged between the converging
rock at intervals, two or three feet below the upper surface and between
these he could feel the considerable thickness of brush which lay
overhead. Wagons could easily pass here, as safe from aerial observation
as a rabbit in his burrow. And so this sunken road and what it led to
might be used almost to the last minute as the irresistible line of
Marshall Foch advanced.

[Illustration: TOM DISCOVERS A BIG GUN.]

The rest was easy, yet it is characteristic of Slade that he called
himself a fool for not having smelled out this covered ravine in his
wanderings. It was dark and musty inside, the little brook meandering
aimlessly from one side to the other, with pools here and there, and the
foliage overhead emitting a pungent, rotten odor from its soaking in the
recent heavy rains. Some of our own boys, you may be interested to know,
recently passed through this very ravine in their advance toward
Tourteron. But one look inside it was enough for me.

Slade hurried through it, parting the matted roofing now and then for a
glimpse of the guiding stars, and was assured that the passage led
almost due north. And somewhere along this dark, sickening way, he was
siezed with hauting doubts, lest he be pursuing a phantom. What he
sought was so great and the clue to if so trifling! “But I remembered
how Indian scouts would follow a trail a hundred miles just because they
found a hair sticking to a bramble,” he told his superiors. And so he
hurried on, on, with hope sometimes mounting, sometimes falling.

After he had gone what he thought was nearly two miles there came a
welcome freshness in the air which much relieved him, and he soon saw
the clear sky overhead. Before him, to the south, the open country
spread away and in the distance he could distinguish two or three tiny
lights which he thought were within the allied lines.

The ravine opened into a spacious basin filled partly by a small lake
and enclosed by dense woods. He followed the guiding stream out of the
dank passage and found that it had its source in this lofty little sheet
of water nestling almost at the very brink of a steep decline. In its
black, placid bosom his guiding stars were reflected and a sombre tree
of swamp larch cast its inverted shadow in the water.

Farther back there were others—larches and cedars. “Good old scouts, I
told ’em,” Slade said afterwards; “they love the water, same as I do.”
So there, Master Roy Blakeley, scout and would-be author—there is the
sequel of your Temple Camp and your Black Lake and your silent,
companionable trees.

Tom Slade saw the lay of the land clearly enough now. This covered
ravine was in fact the lofty crevice between two hills, and from the
distant allied lines its end must have taken the form of a great rough V
high up where those twin hills parted. There was no suggestion of this
upon close inspection, but it is a faculty of the scout to see in his
mind’s eye a bird’s-eye view of the locality he is studying. Thus the
scout has always two pairs of eyes.

What Tom Slade saw about him was just a lake amid woods rising on either
side, east and west, and below him, southward, an expanse of open
country. In the little jungle of crowded brush, which from a distance
must have seemed to half fill that big V, stood a great, ugly thing
swathed in canvas. It poked its big nose up slanting-ways at the stars
as if to threaten those friendly monitors of the night for helping this
weary young fellow who stood leaning against it, trying to realize his
good fortune. All about it and over it the brush and foliage clustered,
as if ashamed to own its presence in their still, obscure retreat; and
in front of it, between it and the steep decline, a graceful larch tree
stood in all its silent, supple dignity. From one of its lower spreading
limbs a broken branch hung loose, the splintered remnant blowing to and
fro in the night.

“It seemed as if it must hurt,” said Slade to Captain Whitloss, “and I
felt kind of as if I ought to go and bandage it up—especially as it did
me such a good turn, as you might say....”




                     CHAPTER XII—THE LAST ADVENTURE


And so, like Archibald Archer, that murderous old brute of the wooded
hills passes out of the story. A gun crew in Santois turned their handle
until they got the muzzle of their gun just exactly where they wanted it
and that was straight for the big wooded V between the hills. And having
fixed everything just right, they let fly—once, twice, three times—and
once again for good measure. And the old giant of the mountains was
never heard from again. But when those hills where Tom Slade hurried in
the night finally came within the iron lines of Marshal Foch, they found
the poor old monster knocked clear off his pedestal, where Tom Slade of
the Flying Corps had leaned to rest that night when his scouting lore
did not forsake him.

But gun crews and fliers notwithstanding, I like to think that the hand
which put that steel brute out of business was the small white hand of
an eager, generous little French girl who lived away at the foot of
those hills in the enemy country. And I am sure that Archibald Archer
would grin with unspeakable delight if he could but know that this good
end was accomplished by a “souveneerrr.”

I am now close upon the end of my reminiscences of Tom Slade with the
Flying Corps and it remains only to tell you what little is really known
about his tragic end.

On his way back from the enemy country that night he was blown out of
his course and drifted over La Chapelle which is about midway between
Epemay and the now famous Chateau-Thierry. If he had been able to fly
low enough to follow the road through Suippes to Chalons all would have
been well, for the approximate time of his return was known, and no
shots were to be fired. Indeed, so far west as La Chapelle they knew of
his being abroad on secret business, and should not have fired. But a
smart Aleck anti-aircraft crew, hearing the whir of a Hun machine, must
take a pop at it and Slade fell with a fractured head among the tangled
ruins of his machine. And that was the end of the Hun plane.

Our newspaper said that Slade was “suffering from a slight wound
received near La Chapelle.” Nothing about this blundering business which
all but lost him his life. In point of fact he suffered from very grave
mental disturbances as a result of his fall and I believe that he had
not regained in full measure his mental faculties at the time of his
final exploit But in this I may be mistaken. In any event, he was morose
and despondent while in the hospital, often mumbling threats to kill
someone. You will be glad to know that Jeanne visited him there, which
seemed to please him, and I think that if he had lived they might,
perhaps, have seen more of each other. One of the nurses told me that he
asked Jeanne if “that man came back” and when she said that he did,
Slade compressed his lips and said nothing. That matter is a mystery to
me. He made few friends in the hospital, because of his natural
taciturnity, and also because of his mental depression.

He was well on toward recovery, however, when the bomb was dropped which
killed two of the nurses. There seems to be no authority for his vowing
vengeance against the hostile fliers, but he is remembered to have said
that he “knew it was that man’s work.”

He was discharged from the hospital as cured, and after some difficulty
succeeded in being reinstated in the Flying Corps, with a combat plane,
which was now his one desire. “I got a special reason,” Captain Whitloss
says he told him. Those are the last words which I have heard of as
coming from Tom Slade.

Of the circumstances attending his last adventure you are already aware,
and save for a bit of lurid coloring, the newspaper account seems to be
about correct. He rose in pursuit of the Hun plane from Jonchery, west
of Rheims, but there seems to be no reason to suppose that he knew who,
in particular, he was pursuing.

Both planes passed out of sight above the clouds and shortly thereafter
the enemy plane was seen to fall. It fell in La Toi, as the news article
stated, just within the allied lines. Its occupant, a German named Otto
Brenner, was in the wreckage, quite dead. The fuel tank of his plane had
been shot through.

About ten minutes afterward Slade’s empty machine came fluttering down,
turned turtle and plunged headlong to earth. It did not fall upon a
“rocky hillside” as the paper stated, but in a field within the allied
lines. The body of Tom Slade was seen to fall separately but there can
be no truth in the declaration which one heard in Rheims (especially
among children) that it descended ten minutes after the plane fell. Such
a thing would be manifestly impossible.

It is true that a German airman, flying over the American lines, dropped
the cap said to have been worn by Slade. In it were his identification
disk, corresponding to the number against his name in the army files,
and the gold cross which he won while a scout. The Germans found his
body half way up a rocky slope and buried it in Pevy which now is in the
hands of Americans. I visited the grave which had a little white wooden
cross above it on which his name is carved in rough letters, very
German. I understand his name was sent to them across No Man’s Land
under a white flag after his identity has been ascertained from his disk
number. So maybe Fritzie has a soft spot, after all.

For your sake I laid a little wreath upon the grave and wrote on a piece
of bark (which I think you told me is the Scouts’ writing material) that
it was from the troop in Bridgeboro.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                       PART THREE—THE GRAY METEOR




                                   I


      Tells of certain perplexities which confronted me;
      also of how I journeyed into Switzerland and of how I
      first chanced to see the Gray Meteor.

The foregoing chapters which embody the story of Slade’s career, were,
as I have said before, intended for the perusal of Roy Blakeley alone.
They form, as you will have seen, a sort of story within a story. What
went before, and what I am now about to write, would never have been
written (much less published) save for the startling discoveries which I
have recently made. As I feel now, I should like not only Roy Blakeley,
but the whole world, to know the full truth of this strange business.

You will have noticed, no doubt, that in my somewhat rambling story of
Slade’s career I refrained from mentioning the shocking revelations that
were contained in the papers which I found in the Scuppers. To me (who
did not know him), the death of the brave airman was not so much of a
shock, but that he should have sold himself and his undoubted talents to
the enemy while all the while keeping up the appearance of loyal service
to the United States, was appalling—almost unbelievable. When and how,
in those latter days of his brave career, he had played into their
blood-guilty hands, I could not conjecture. But that is the wily genius
of spies and traitors.

I tried to make allowance for him on the supposition that his mind had
been polluted, his vision knocked askew, away back home by the disloyal
German by whom he had been employed. I told myself that though he was
brave, he was yet ignorant and weak, perhaps.

They had sent him into the enemy country partly because he had, in some
measure, the German type of countenance and spoke German passably. Was
there some obscure vein of German running in him, I asked myself. That
might explain, though it would not excuse. He had spoken in blunt praise
of his German captors and had come near to being court-martialled for
it. Was that just common fairness to certain Germans in a particular
instance? Or did it show the bent of his mind? It almost made me sick to
think about it. And I felt guilty to be perpetuating his reckless
courage for the benefit of the boy who had believed in him and still
revered his memory.

It is enough for me to say now that I shall write the balance of this
story with a clearer conscience.

Perhaps you will say that I should have come to believe in him when I
learned of his brave, heroic acts. But I beg you to remember the watch,
with T. S. engraved on the back of it, and the wallet packed full of
treason which was connected with it by a heavy lock-link chain. You
remember that? You remember that the watch was made in America? You
remember that in that wallet was the photograph of a Bridgeboro girl?
Bridgeboro, only a small place too, where he had lived and where I
lived, and where Roy lived. You remember the part of that girl’s letter
on the back of which was written a traitorous memorandum? Here it is
now—I copy it:

    ... looked about it seemed as if everyone in Bridgeboro was
    there. And of course the Boy Scouts and that excruciating
    imp of a Blakeley boy were on hand—Ruth’s brother, you know.
    Oh, by the way, who do you suppose is in the old place on
    Terrace Ave? Guess. The Red Cross ladies, and I’m working
    with

Heaven knows how many times in my mind I afterward tried to wrench that
chain asunder and separate that name from the mementoes of treachery and
crime, just as I had actually tried in my amazement and bewilderment as
I sat in that little dank cave away up in the Scuppers where he had
fallen.

But in the end of it this was the sad conclusion that I reached—that
brave and heroic exploits may be colored and exaggerated by those who
tell them, but that records kept in secret do not lie. And if I did not
picture the adventurous young American as a patriot in those gathered
reminiscences of his career, it was because I could not, for the
haunting thought of some unknown, dark activities of his were always in
my mind, a stalking spectre. Yet not a hint did I give to Archer even,
much less to Roy, of what I had found out.

But there were one or two things which often puzzled me in the writing
of those chapters for Roy and I will mention these now. One was that
Archer told me Slade had no use for girls and never received letters
from them. Yet here was a very friendly, companionable letter, or part
of one, at least. Perhaps that is of no importance.

But this Bridgeboro girl had said in her letter that _that extraordinary
imp of a Blakeley boy was on hand—Ruth’s brother_. Did not Tom Slade
know that Roy was Ruth Blakeley’s brother, without her saying that?
Could she have supposed that he did not know who Roy was?

I thought about it a good deal and I did not cease to think of it until
a certain trouble of my own intervened and put all thoughts of Tom Slade
out of my mind for the time. This was the very troublesome cough I had
contracted as a result of being gassed. I could not seem to get the gas
out of my lungs, and it was becoming a matter of concern to me. I have
seen young fellows, recovered from the immediate, acute effects of
gassing, go to the wall with consumption. So when the doctors in Paris
told me that a change of air would be my best physician I lost no time
in seeking the mountains of Switzerland. I may mention, if you care to
know it, that I am now quite recovered and that with returning strength
there came to me a great light which brought me happiness and peace of
mind.

Of this I must now tell you.

The little hamlet of St. Craix is about thirty miles south of Basel in a
jumble of mountains which anywhere else but in Switzerland would require
a couple of hundred square miles to stand in. Solothurn is the nearest
place of any size but not exactly near enough to be neighborly, and the
great Ramieux Mountain rears its mighty bulk to the north. Some twenty
odd miles to the west is France, but I should say it would be a couple
of hundred million miles, more or less, if you went over the mountains.
From Ramieux Mountain I think you could slide down to Vetroz, get lunch,
and then slide on down and catch the train at Delemont.

My host, Hans Twann, had his little hostelry on the side of Meiden
Mountain, a mere hubble of a couple of thousand feet or so, and his
orchard tilted up like a picture on an easel. With the apples that grew
in this orchard he made cider, and he also made Kirschwasser, a very
agreeable beverage notwithstanding its formidable name.

He accommodated tourists on the side, in more ways than one, since his
land was all up and down, and from a distance his quaint little place
must have looked as if it were fixed like a postage stamp against the
rising wall of the mountain. What kept it there I cannot for the life of
me tell you. I always felt safer in back of it for then, if the worst
happened, I should fall down against it and stop. There was a little odd
patch of level land here, too, and he utilized it for an arbor where I
used to sit.

Here Herr Twann would often join me and I would banter him about the
insignificant size of his country. “Ach,” he would say, “dat iss becauss
it iss all crunched up—what? Like a piece of trash paper. Spread it out
flat and it iss bigger dan your United States.” There was some force to
this argument.

Herr Twann and his little household talked German among themselves, like
most of the inhabitants of northern Switzerland, though they all spoke a
sort of English which they had picked up from the many tourists who
resorted to the funny little place before the war.

His two children, Egbert and Emmie, were my particular friends and many
were the Alpine rambles that we had together. They were about ten and
eleven respectively, I think, the girl being the younger. Often we would
go down into St. Craix, the oddest little community you would wish to
see, with its little spired chapel just like a church in a toy village.

It was upon the Sunday of my first attendance at this church that
something happened which greatly distressed me. It all grew out of the
mischievous banter of those children. When the service was over they
showed me the relics (of the sort that any church in Switzerland has),
hallowed mementoes of saints and martyrs, and I hope I showed a seemly
reverence for them. As we left the hamlet they led me to a window of the
little schoolhouse and showed me within a skull which they said had been
found in a glacier.

“Now,” said I, “if you will show me the apple that William Tell shot
from his son’s head, I shall have seen all the sights.”

“We will show you the gray meteor,” they said. “You know what dat meteor
iss?”

“A big rock,” I told them, and I added sagely that we were not so stupid
in America.

They laughed and said I should see what kind of a rock this “gray
meteor” was.

After we had walked some distance they began looking eagerly across a
certain field at the farther side of which a mountain arose. Right at
the base of this mountain was a kind of grove. Their laughing voices
echoed back from the rugged height as we entered the field, and sounded
clear and musical in the quiet calm of that Alpine Sabbath morn.

“Come,” they urged.

As we neared the foot of the mountain the irregular contour of the base
developed into little rocks and caves, and then I saw emerging from one
of these a living figure which paused irresolutely, watching us.

“See—now you are fooled!” little Emmie cried. “You are so sure it iss a
rock!”

“You mean _that_ is the meteor?” I asked.

“So—you are fooled!” she answered gleefully.

As we approached closer, I could see the figure clearly, and a more
forlorn and pitiable spectacle I have never gazed upon. Seeing me, he
started to run, but thinking better of it, paused and waited for us with
an aspect of indescribable terror. I wore the regulation khaki uniform
of correspondents at the front, and this he seemed to scrutinize with a
kind of bewildered agitation.

“Hello,” I said, as we reached what I suppose I must call his lair. “How
are _you_ this bright Sunday morning?”

He made no answer, but watched me furtively and once or twice seemed on
the point of making off. It was evident that he either lived or spent
much time in a little cave formed by the rocks for near this were the
charred remnants of a fire. He was a young fellow of perhaps twenty,
with blond, disordered hair, and blue eyes, which latter feature
disconcerted me greatly for they bespoke a kind of breathing suspense,
entirely unwarranted by our innocent intrusion. His cheekbones were very
noticeable, he looked thin and ill-nourished, and the end of his mouth
twitched distressingly.

As to his apparel, it was in the last stages of shabbiness. His trousers
were, I dare say, of khaki, but they hung loose and looked ridiculous in
the absence of accompanying puttees. He wore the coat of a German
officer (of what rank or branch of service I could not say) and to
complete his grotesque appearance, he had a compass hung on a cord
around his neck which dangled upon his chest like a lady’s ornament.

“Well, how do you find yourself?” I repeated at a venture, for I did not
know whether or not he spoke English. He looked at me for a few seconds,
picked up a stick and then began to cry.

Seeing that no exchange of communication was possible between us, and
feeling that my intrusion was chiefly responsible for his agitation, I
told my little friends that we had better go. They seemed delighted to
have exhibited this creature to me.

“I think we should not laugh at him,” I said, as we resumed our homeward
way. “His brain is evidently not right and he is sick. Why do you call
him the gray meteor?”

“Is he not gray—his coat?” piped up young Egbert.

“Yes, but—meteor.”

“Ach, he come nobody know where—like out of the sky.”

As I looked back I could see the poor creature kneeling over his charred
fire rubbing one stick across another so that it looked as if he were
playing a violin.




                                   II


      Tells of my visit with the Gray Meteor and of how I
      entertained him and of his call upon me.

You will believe that I lost no time in quizzing my host about this
mysterious “gray meteor.”

“Ach,” said he, “some deserter. Geneva and Locle are full uff them.”

“Geneva and Locle are near the border,” I said, “and all they have to do
is to take a hop, skip and a jump to get there. There are some from over
the Rhine, too,” I added, for I did not relish his implication that all
deserters were from France.

“Well, diss one is American, anyway,” he said.

“And how about his German coat?” I asked; “how do you know he is
American?”

“He iss crazy, dat is why,” he laughed. “He must be alwavss camping out.
Don’t you worry about him.”

“He is not crazy,” I retorted, a bit nettled, “but I will tell you what
is the matter with him——”

“Sure, he iss lazy.”

“He is suffering from shell shock or something of that sort,” I said,
ignoring his remark. “And what I should like to know is, how did he find
his way up here in such a state. Besides,” I added, “he should have care
and companionship. He is in no condition to be living in that hole of a
cave. Do you know anything about him?”

“He come apout a mont’ ago—nobody knows how. I ask him een, put he will
haff nudding. The childrens, dey call him de gray meteor. Maybe he come
from Mars—what?”

I soon found that if this poor, strayed soul had ever been a sensation
he had long since ceased to be one. The children still found him a
source of entertainment, made fun of him, and I am afraid, annoyed him.
Otherwise he lived in his cave, shunned the village and all other haunts
of men. I understood that he lived chiefly on fish which he caught, but
sometimes the children left food near his solitary retreat.

As to his being a deserter, that may very well have been the case, I
thought, but deserter or not, he was suffering from shell shock if I
knew anything about the manifestations of that dreadful thing.

How he had penetrated so far to this obscure retreat I could not
conjecture, for though not far distant in miles from the border, the
spot was unfrequented and almost inaccessible. Nor was such remoteness
necessary. In Basel, or any of the places along the western frontier, he
would have been as safe from molestation as at the North Pole. First and
last, his presence there puzzled and interested me, and his condition
aroused my sympathy.

All the next day my thoughts dwelt upon his gaunt appearance and
frightened look and on that vacillating timidity and uncertainty of
action which bespoke a crippled power of will. There was no mistaking
those signs; I had seen them before.

The morning following I dug into my grip and picking out several of the
bully old pals which I had brought with me, sallied forth to the retreat
of the “gray meteor.” From what Herr Twann had said I surmised that he
spoke English and finding him kneeling by the ashes of his fire, in
about the same position as when I had left him the day before, I said
cheerily:

“Good morning—fine Alpine weather.”

The look he gave me pierced me to the heart. I felt that he would either
run away or crawl to me like a guilty dog in grovelling shame. He
breathed heavily and his eyes were lit with an anguish of terror. He
started to rise but apparently had not the strength of will to lift
himself and as he crouched there a twig broke under his feet and he
started as if a cannon had been shot off close by.

“I think you’ve been trying to get a fire,” said I pleasantly, “by
rubbing those two sticks together. Am I right?”

He only looked at me and smiled uncertainly. “That’s a pretty hard
stunt,” I continued. “Suppose we start it with a match this time and
tomorrow I’ll hunt this business up. I’ve a book that tells about those
things. You and I will run through it together.”

I lighted the little parcel of twigs which he had gathered and after
watching the flame a few moments he said, “More?” and seemed irresolute
whether to bring more twigs or not.

“A few more, then a couple of big pieces, and we’ll be all hunk,” I
said.

The fire well started, we sat down beside it.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” he asked nervously.

“Quite hot,” said I.

Then he gulped as if it had been an effort for him to say that much.

“You were right the first time,” I added, which seemed to afford him a
kind of childish pleasure.

“Now,” said I, “if you think I’m a soldier because I have on this khaki
suit, you’re mistaken. I’m a fellow that writes stories and things, and
I like to camp just as you do. I think you and I are very much alike.
Will you tell me your name?”

He shook his head, smiling weakly. It seemed to me that he had no
objection to telling me, but that he just lacked the stamina to do it. I
therefore began to speak of something else and after a moment he said:

“Tasso.”

“Is that your name?”

He nodded as if he had done a great thing in telling me. Then a slight
movement of my arm startled him and he jumped and trembled.

“Are you Italian?” I said; “is that your first name or your last name?”

“Both,” he said.

“Well,” said I, “you and I are going to be friends, anyway. And I’ve
brought along another friend, too. He’s in a book named _Kidnapped_. He
went on a long hike and lived in caves just like you. He made a long
trip through mountains with a companion and at last got to Edinburgh.”

He looked at me for a moment in a puzzled way and then asked
hesitatingly, “Did he get there in the night?”

“Indeed, I don’t remember,” I said, “but we shall find out.”

Suddenly he began to cry like a baby and it was pitiful to see him.
While he was crying I began to read those wonderful adventures of David
Balfour and he soon seemed to listen. But with every stir he would start
like a frightened animal and he had a way of twisting and pulling the
cord around his neck which was heartrending to see, so weak and aimless
was it. But he was attentive and evidently interested.

Thus began my acquaintance with that forlorn derelict of the great war,
and my simple program for helping him seemed to have begun auspiciously.
Each day I visited him and read to him and though he said little, and
that to no purpose, he seemed interested and would listen silently hour
after hour, starting at the merest sound or movement, and twirling and
twisting the cord on which hung his rusty, broken compass.

On the evening of the fourth or fifth day I saw him coming up the
mountain path toward the little inn. He paused trembling at the edge of
our little arbor and breathed as if he were very weary. I rose slowly,
being particular to make no noise or sudden movement, and greeted him as
if he had been coming each day. He stood uncertainly, intertwining his
fingers, and seemed on the point of retreating. But he had come, and
that was a great step in advance.

“I think it is my front name,” he said, as if that were the purpose of
his call.

“Oh, yes,” said I. “Tasso. So now I’ll call you Tasso.”

“If it thunders will you come and stay with me?” he asked.

“Indeed I will,” said I, “but it’s not going to thunder and tomorrow you
and I are going to take a hike together.”




                                  III


      Tells of my ramble with the Gray Meteor and of his
      singular conduct, and of a discovery which I made.

I have seen soldiers suffering from shell shock led across the boulevard
in Paris, held by the hand like children. I have seen one, a great,
strapping fellow, guided to his seat in a restaurant. I have seen one
stand upon the street wringing his hands and sobbing because he did not
know which way to go. And no one of these unfortunates that I have ever
seen would have ventured out alone upon the most trifling errand. Panic
fear of themselves is their most distressing and conspicuous symptom.

Yet here was one of them whose last vestige of stamina seemed to have
forsaken him, but who had yet penetrated into these rugged mountain
heights. It was not so much the distance from France, as the endless
up-and-down distances and winding ways of those Alpine fastnesses which
made the thing seem impossible. Apparently he had a half forgotten
smattering of some of the primitive outdoor arts and I had won his
confidence and aroused some hope and interest in him by promising him a
“hike.” But he was no more able to reach this sequestered spot unaided
than a baby in arms.

Who, then, had aided him?

Try as I would, I could not persuade him to remain over night at my
little inn, the fear of any noise seeming constantly with him, and I let
him go, realizing with regret that perhaps he was as well off in his
solitude with only the softer voices of nature about him.

But in the morning I was early at his retreat, with high hopes of the
little excursion which awaited us. For I had thought that a quiet ramble
in those unfrequented places would be a balm and solace to his poor
nerves and wavering mind. Little did I dream what that ramble would
reveal.

Our path took us through a forest thick with pines of such magnificence
as I had never before seen, one as much like another as the pillars of a
collonade, and for which this Jura range is famous. I have it from my
host that after rainy weather the pungent odor from these pines is
actually intoxicating and that wayfarers have been known to slumber
under its fragrant influence for several days. I think I shall never
again smell the spirit-rousing pungence of a Christmas tree without
recalling our memorable ramble in that dim cathedral of the Jura
Mountains.

I noticed that the sounds of nature had no such distressing effect upon
my companion as did the ruder clamor of human clap-trap, and that he was
more at ease in these majestic scenes. Perhaps kind nature, that great
physician who asks no fee, had pointed out his solitary cave to him,
after the thunderous tumult of the war—I do not know. But in any event
he seemed more at ease than I had yet seen him. And I perceived clearly
enough then that he was not insane—only that he had lost his grip.

He seemed to take an interest in everything about us and surprised me
with the knowledge which he showed of nature and her little oddities.
Once he picked up a twig saying that it had grown on the north side of a
tree, and again a scrap of rock which he said was sandstone. “They’re
all sandstone, these mountains,” he said, or rather asked, as if he were
not quite sure of himself and afraid that I would contradict him.

“Yes,” I said. “I guess they’re mostly sandstone,” though, to tell you
the truth, they might have been soapstone for all I knew.

Not once did he speak of the war and when I cautiously mentioned it in a
casual way he paid no attention. It seemed that he had forgotten all
about it—blessed lapse of memory, I thought.

Well, after a while we came upon rough country, like a miniature chain
of mountains up there amid those mighty peaks. Here were rocky hollows
and no end of little caves and glens—such picturesqueness as I had never
seen. They say these caves are filled with the bones of extinct animals
and one bleached relic I picked up. But my companion told me that it was
only wood. “See,” he said smiling, “it has a grain.”

I think it was the first instance of a genuine smile that I had seen
upon his wan countenance.

Presently he kneeled down and examined some mossy earth, and
straightway, to my regret, he became greatly excited. We were in a sort
of little canon which extended some hundred yards or so and petered out
in an area of fairly level forest land where the trees grew sparsely in
a rocky soil.

“What is it?” I asked, a bit anxiously.

“See?” he said, standing and placing his heel in the moss. “See?”

“You mean it’s a footprint?” I asked.

“See?” he asked nervously, almost in suspense, as if dreading my reply.

“Surely,” said I; “I dare say others have passed here. We are not so far
from the village.”

“It’s mine,” he said. “See?” And ignoring me, he crept along, for all
the world as if he had lost something, examining the earth with great
concern and increasing satisfaction.

I had never before seen him so interested, and my own interest was
aroused, for if he had indeed passed here himself it might afford a clue
to something or other—though I did not know what.

“It is only moss,” I said, “and——”

“It’s wax-moss,” he interrupted me with the first sign of assurance he
had ever shown. “They stay in wax-moss—See?”

He was now so engrossed with his quest that I could but watch and follow
him.

“Have you been here before?” I queried. He gave no heed, but hurried
along through the gully until, having gone a hundred feet or more, his
will power seemed to collapse and he waited for me, wringing his hands
distressingly.

“What is it?” I said.

“It’s over there,” he answered, clutching me in evident terror.

“Well, we’ll go and see it,” I answered cheerily, and we moved along, he
still clutching me as if afraid that I would desert him.

It was curious to see how the one or two footprints he had found aroused
him to a flight of energy which petered out as quickly and left him
helpless and agitated. I could not for the life of me imagine why those
footprints should have interested him so and sent him loping along the
gully. He found no others, but apparently the sight of those two or
three produced a glimmer of memory in him. Evidently he had been here
before, and was wishful to retrace his former path but lacked the will
and courage to do so.

“I know where it is,” he said, wringing his hands. “I know now. Will you
go with me?”

His look was so imploring and his voice so full of a kind of panic fear
that I was persuaded there was something he wished to show me but dared
not. His will seemed to tipple like a seesaw between resolution and
irresolution, and he fell into the old habit of starting and clutching
me at every sound.

“Come,” I said, “I’ll go with you.”

I cannot describe the eager terror in his eyes, the trembling of his
hands as he clutched my arm, and the irresolute pauses which he made as
he passed along through the gully. Finally he seemed about to clamber
out of the rocky depression, hesitated, and broke down utterly, sobbing
like a child.

“Look—there—,” he at last managed to gasp “You—go—and see.” And he
gulped and tightened his grasp in panic fright.

I looked across a mass of piled up rock and saw, some distance away, a
large object which seemed to stir as I watched it.

“That’s it,” he said.

“All right,” said I. “You stay here, sit down on that stone and I’ll go
and see.”

He sat down, twirling the cord around his neck and watching me eagerly.
As I clambered up the low embankment, he started at the slight noise I
made.

Picking my way among the boulders I approached the object, until, a few
feet from it, I paused and looked at it aghast. It was the wreck of a
German observation balloon. The gas was entirely gone from its great bag
which lay plastered down upon the rocks, and its formerly glass-enclosed
car was in complete ruin. I think it must have blown across those rocks
for some distance to have been so shattered.

But all the details of its wreck and dilapidation were as nothing to me
when I saw certain markings on the broken side of its car. There were
two black crosses side by side, with the German Imperial coat of arms
between them.

The balloon with the two black crosses was known far and wide upon the
west front. It was the little palace, the lofty headquarters of an arch
demon of aerial frightfulness, who was the peering eye and minion of his
murderous superiors. I had talked with those who knew and catered to
this sneaking beast, and cowered before his swaggering arrogance—a poor
little French girl and her crippled father. He it was who had come from
America to help the Fatherland; who “knew about ze ships, when zey will
go”; whose two black crosses were a mark of special honor and
distinction!

Well, by the grace of Heaven, he was a mystery no longer. Poor,
dribbling, guilt-haunted wretch—he had brought me face to face with the
wrecked instrument of his crimes.

I make no excuse for what I did—I am only human. I strode back to where
the stricken creature sat, twirling and twisting the cord about his
neck. I was trembling and my words came short and spasmodic, but whether
from amazement or rage I do not know now. I only know that he cowered
before me like a reed blown in the blast—it stings me to the heart as I
think of it now.

“So you have got your reward,” I said. “Be sure that God knows how to
punish such as you! I have seen your evil eye put out and there, _there_
it lies, over among those rocks. You must come back to it, eh? Like a
murderer to its victim!”

His breath came in great, panting gulps, he wrung and twisted his hands,
and his look—oh, it will haunt me forever.

“I know who you are now! You will tell a little French girl that
Americans are murderers and hang their people to lamp-posts! America,
where you lived yourself and made your living—— Now you’ve got your
reward! I have seen the house that you defiled with your presence—the
little cottage of a French peasant! I don’t know how many ships lie at
the bottom of the ocean on account of you, you sneaking, lying
blackguard! But you’ve got your reward. Those innocent women and babies
at the bottom of the sea are better off than you—with your peering eye
put out and your senses drivelling. No wonder you’re afraid! Probably
the thunder of some Yankee cannon knocked your brain endways. The most
bestial German is a saint compared with you—Monsieur le Capitaine!” I
sneered. “No, keep away from me!” For he held his hands toward me with a
pitiful gesture. “I’ll not interfere with the decree of God. You can
wander in these mountains like a lost soul for all I care—drivelling
about poor murdered Indians in America. If you’ve forgotten your name,
I’ll tell it to you. It’s Toby! I know of one other almost as bad as you
are—Slade his name is—who would sell his country. Over there at that
balloon is a piece of broken cable—go and hang yourself with it—if
you’ve got the nerve!”

And with that I marched away. Scarcely had I gone ten paces when his
voice rose in a scream to wake the Heavens. Again and again he screeched
in an anguish of despair and his piercing cries echoed from those lonely
mountains until they died away in pitiable sobs.

But I never so much as turned to look at him.




                                   IV


      Tells how I went forth into the night, and of my
      quest, and of my singular state of mind.

“So that is the infamous Captain Toby,” I thought, as I started back to
the inn, all agog over this discovery. “Monsieur le Capitaine, the sky
spy, accessory to a thousand murders! Another of Dennheimer’s recruits.
Well, he has his reward.” He would have fared worse, I consoled myself,
if he had fallen within the allied lines.

But already (though I would not acknowledge it) I had begun to feel the
first pangs of regret, not because I had denounced him, but because I
had not at least brought him back and left him in his cave where I had
found him. For if, indeed, I wished to leave his punishment to
Providence, it would have seemed only fair to return him to the spot
where Providence had placed him when I intervened.

I began to wonder how he had drifted so far and what were the
circumstances of his tragic flight. The broken cable told much, but what
was the experience which had left him with a tottering, broken will—the
victim of hideous fear and haunting guilt? He had evidently a hazy
recollection of landing in the darkness, for he had asked me, in his
eager, furtive way, if _David Balfour_ had reached his destination at
night.

I believed that his condition had been worse—was perhaps getting better
when I first saw him. And I pictured his being carried through the
darkness, a crazed victim locked in his little car, storm-tossed
perhaps, borne over those majestic peaks, beating against his glass
enclosure in crying fright, and at last dragged across rough canons and
over rocks and crawling out of the wreckage in the blackness of night in
this unknown country. I pictured him wandering aimlessly among the hills
and glens, in storm and tempest perhaps, and finally finding refuge in
his lone cave.

Before I had reached the inn I turned and retraced my steps to the scene
of our parting, but he was gone. I was siezed with remorse. The night
was coming on, and the thought of the poor wretch stricken anew by the
shock of my tirade, roaming aimlessly among those caverns, went to my
heart.

This, I thought, was not the way Uncle Sam treated his enemy prisoners.
I went back to his cave hoping that I might find him there, but there
was no sign of him, and I turned back toward the inn remorsefully.

And now I did not spare myself. I recalled my effort to find excuse, or
at least a plausible explanation, for Tom Slade’s truckling to the
enemy, because he was my young friend’s pal and lived in my own home
town. I recalled my agreeable pastime of recounting the episodes of his
loyal service, and of how I had put into the background that dark secret
of the Scuppers. But for this poor, half demented creature, who was
punished already, I had had nothing but heartless contempt and loathing.
I would have thought shame to dishonor that grave in Pevy. Yet here was
I dishonoring the dead—for was not this wretched thing dead in a way?

I cannot tell you of the pangs I suffered as the night drew on. Herr
Twann, who had shown little sympathy or interest in our unhappy
neighbor, seemed like a saint now compared to myself. A fine bungle I
had made of my kind intent! I have seen wounded soldiers handled pretty
roughly, but never one with genuine shell shock.

To my host and his good wife I said nothing of what I had learned—much
less of what I had done, but all through the evening I nursed my remorse
in silence.

As luck would have it, the night blew up cold and stormy. There is a
keenness to the slightest breeze in these parts and I have wondered
whether it is because of the narrow valleys it passes through, causing,
as one might say, a perpetual draft. The rain comes in gusts.

Well, on this memorable night there was not so much as a star to be
seen—only the tiny light away up on Ollon peak, which I always thought
must be a star. Some hermit monks lived there, I understood, and lonely
enough it must have been for them. Down in St. Craix we could see the
lights, dimmed by the misty thickness of the blown rain, disappear one
after another as the good peasant people went to their beds, and as I
watched them from our tap-room window, I felt that no human being should
be abroad in those mountains on such a night. Once there came a tap upon
our door and I thought it might be that poor distracted soul, but it was
only Laff Turtman, the herdsman, for a warming draught of kirschwasser.
He was on his way down to Craix with his sheep, and I could see them out
in the path, making a kind of community of warmth by crowding together.
The blazing fire in our tap-room was cheerful that night and we all sat
about it.

At last I could stand it no longer and taking my host’s oilskin cape and
hat from their peg, I announced that I was going to see if the Gray
Meteor was all right, that being the name they always called him by. It
pleased me to assume that he would be in his cave, and I would not
entertain the thought that he was not there. But he was nowhere about
the place. Outside were the two smooth sticks that he was wont to rub
together with such childish confidence of getting a spark from them, and
it went to my heart to see them lying there. The rain was streaming down
the cliff above his cave and pouring over the opening like a waterfall.

I was thoroughly alarmed now, but what to do I did not know. I cannot
say I had any sympathy for him more than any Christian would have for
the lowest wretch cast adrift on such a night. I was in two minds
whether to go all the way down into the village, but what could I do
there? Awaken the good people out of their slumbers?

It was intolerable to do nothing, and I ended by doing the only other
thing I could think of, and that was to pick my way through all that
drenching rain and darkness to the wreck of his balloon. Now that he had
seen it again, I suspected it would have a kind of fascination for him.

But he was not there and I was at my wits’ end. The wreck looked tragic
and uncanny enough in the night, the hollow, wrinkled bag moving to and
fro, and simulating the stirrings of some crouching thing among the
rocks. I groped about among the wreckage of the car and found a dented,
rusted spyglass, which had doubtless stolen many a secret from behind
our lines, and a jack-knife, so rusted that I could not open it. This I
took—I do not know why.

Suddenly through the rain I heard a sound near me and peering about I
saw a goggled head bobbing close by.

“Who is it—speak,” I demanded, and I am afraid my voice was not quite
steady.

But there was no answer and approaching I found it to be only an
airman’s helmet hanging from a hook in the broken moulding. Even as I
felt of it I started at a rustling sound beneath me, but I supposed it
was only some small creature of the mountains who had made the forlorn
ruin its home.

I had no wish to linger there and started homeward, drenched and utterly
miserable. Nor will I deny that this weird spectacle in those rugged,
dark-enshrouded mountains, had made me the prey of shadowy forebodings
and uncanny fancies. I, too, must start at every little sound and
shudder with a sort of vague apprehension. I cannot describe it any
better than to say that I felt as if something dreadful were going to
happen. I thought how the war had pushed its long, bloody tentacles out
to the farthest corner of the world—causing murder in some tropic
village, suicide in the ice-bound north—horror and destruction
everywhere. And it was here upon these neutral Alpine hills, this war,
stalking in the form of one distraught and guilty soul, who had been
cast up here with all his crimes upon his head. “One cannot get away
from it,” I said.

I felt it, I knew it—that something, I knew not what, but something, was
going to happen.




                                   V


      Tells of my experience in the night, and brings my
      formal narrative to a close.

The household was gone to bed when I reached the little inn, but the
fire had been left burning for me, and I hung my dripping garments
before it and sank down on the massive settle. The candle was burning
out but the blaze in the big fireplace diffused its grateful warmth and
gave out a dim, fitful brightness. I remember how it checkered up the
rough wainscot and low-raftered ceiling so that my eye was ever and
again caught by moving figures which were nothing but the reflection of
the dancing blaze. Outside the blown rain beat against the little
windows in intermittent splashes, which seemed to heighten the sense of
comfort and security within.

But I took small comfort in the dim warmth, for I was sick at heart—sick
with horror and disgust at the renewed memory of that creature’s
deeds—treason—cowardly murder—but most of all at myself. I tried to
console myself with the reflection that it was better so, that after all
I had been giving aid and comfort to the enemy. We do not get much
consolation from the mental comforts which we manufacture for ourselves,
and the result of all this idle thinking was just to take me back home
to Bridgeboro and to conjure up thoughts of my young friend, Roy
Blakeley. _Do a good turn daily_, he had said. I could see him as he
said it! _Two on Sundays and holidays. Get a turning lathe and turn out
good turns. Keep turning._ I smiled at the recollection of all his
nonsense.... A fine kind of a good turn I had done!

So I fell to thinking, or rather my mind wandered aimlessly back to
that day when Roy and I had stood outside the Bridgeboro station,
reading the account of Tom Slade’s last exploit. I recalled the little
catch in his voice when he asked me if I was “_sure_ it was really
true,” and of how he looked across the street at the window of Temple
Camp office, where hung the service flag with its single star. Then I
thought of the grave in Pevy with its little wooden cross marked with
rough lettering—absurdly German. I thought of how, even to the last
moment of our parting, when he handed up my grips to the car platform,
he clung staunchly to the hope that somehow his pal was yet living.

“Well, at least,” I reflected cynically, “Tom Slade had the decency to
leave a few untainted memorials of loyal service behind him—enough to
make a story.” And I thanked my stars that no hint of other things had
escaped from my pen, in that tale which I had written for Roy. That did
not trouble my conscience at all now. Might it not go down as a good
turn? And the girl, whoever she was, she must never know either. Where
ignorance was bliss, ’twas folly to be wise. Why should I disgrace my
own home town and bring shame upon this noble “good turner” and scout?

Then in my drowsy reverie (for the dying fire had cast its spell on me)
I thought of something Slade had said to Jeanne Grigou—that you cannot
disgrace yourself alone. Queer he had not thought of that when he had
fallen into the web of the unspeakable Dennheimer. Why had he not
thought of Bridgeboro then—little Bridgeboro which was first over the
top with its loan quota. Had not the Schmitt affair been quite enough
for little Bridgeboro which had had its name sprawled all over the New
York papers on account of it?

Well, in any event, there should be no more of this business....

Roy—Roy—he would get over the shock of death, I mused. Nature provides
for that. But the shock of disgrace.... That was a pretty good story,
too—stopping just short of.... Yes, it was a pretty good story. And I
would give it to Roy and say, “Here’s a good turn I have turned out for
you.” And then....

Whew! How the rain beat against the window! The rattling of the loose
frame interrupted my reverie so that I got up and stretched myself and
went over and forced a folded scrap of paper between it and the jamb.

“I’ll be thankful,” I half yawned as I resumed my seat before the fire,
“if this thing is over soon.” I don’t know whether I was thinking of the
storm or the war.

But the rattling did not cease. Oh, it was the door and not the window.
So I got up again—then stood stark still, feeling a tremor all over me.
Not an inch could I move, only stand there, every nerve on edge,
listening. If I had been certain of a tapping on that door I would have
experienced no suspense, for suspense is tense uncertainty, and I knew
not whether it was a tapping or not.

I thought it was not, and to make sure I went over, unbarred the heavy
door and threw it open.

Never while I live shall I forget that sight. He stood there, dripping,
trembling; and if there had ever been a touch of the ridiculous in his
appearance in that tattered, ill-fitting German coat, there was nothing
but pathos in it now; his clothes hung in shining wetness to his form so
that I saw with horror how gaunt and emaciated he was. He wore no hat
and his blonde hair was streaking down over his face and he gazed out
from between those drooping strands with such a pitiful look of appeal
as I had never seen before.

[Illustration: HE STOOD THERE, DRIPPING, TREMBLING.]

“Yes,” I said roughly, “come in—I’m glad you’ve come. No, don’t touch
me, but sit there by the fire—you’re welcome. I was to blame. I’m
sorry.” It was odd, perhaps, but even in my relief at seeing him and
giving him shelter, a little of my anger and resentment returned so that
I was at an effort to repress it. “Dennheimer is worse than you, for he
seduced you. Sit down—you needn’t be afraid.”

I seated myself in the great chair before the fire, but he remained
standing with one hand upon its massive back. His sleeve was tight and
clinging, like a woman’s, which gave him a grotesque look and somehow
went to my heart. So standing, he spoke with a painful effort at
composure as if his few words had been contemplated and rehearsed. As he
spoke, I thought I saw in his eyes a kind of forced calmness as if he
had at last groped his way to some peg to hang his wits on.

“That other name,” he said, “say it.”

I was surprised that after his experience he did not clutch my arm, but
instead the chair and clung to it as if that were a part of his resolve.
The poor, heroic effort at self-control was touching and I answered in a
kinder tone.

“Other name? There isn’t any other name. I want you to sit close to the
fire and take off your coat and shoes; then we’ll talk. See, I’ll put a
fresh log on.”

“Say that name,” he repeated, and already I could see his will power
tottering. It had been strong enough for a request but not for continued
insistence.

“I think you must remember Dennheimer,” I said, “and I know of _no_
other name. Of course, you knew Dennheimer.”

He shook his head.

“Well,” I persisted, “it is more important to get dry and warm. I wonder
how you found your way here in such a night.”

“I can find my way anywhere,” he said; “I _had_ to find my way to ask
about the name.”

I was puzzled.

“You mean your own name—Tasso?” I ventured.

“Two traitors,” he said; “the other one. You said—you said—you said—_I_
was one.”

“Indeed,” I said, “I am not burdening my mind with the names of traitors
and if I named one it must have been in anger. As for you, I’ll not be
your judge—so sit down. You are tired and——”

“I’ve known a night like this before,” he said, clutching the chair and
gulping in the labor of his effort to be calm and rational; “I am glad
on account of it—the rain—because—it—it—reminds me. _You_ are a _coward_
if you are afraid of a storm—you—are—scouts—the—they——” and his voice
trailed away.

“Shh,” I said. “You must be quiet I will tell you the other name——”

“Yes,” he said eagerly.

“It was a young fellow who lived in my town in America and came over
here and after a while he got mixed up with the Germans somehow. Slade
was his name—Tom Slade; and I’m sorry I mentioned it before. He’s dead
now——”

“Say his name again,” he interrupted, trembling like a leaf.

“Slade—Tom Slade.”

“Tomasso—not Tasso,” he cried; “_that_ is what he used to call me.”

I thought his wits were wandering now, so I spoke soothingly, telling
him again to sit down. But he clutched my arm and looked at me like a
wild man. There was a light in his eyes, too, which I had never seen
before. And if he lacked in will and had no power to speak connectedly,
a certain fine abandon came to him which took me by storm. I knew, of
course, that his tirade was but the reaction of his nervous strain and
mental hallucinations, but some things that he said puzzled and rather
startled me.

“Do you know—do you know what he—I did,” he breathed. “You think you can
bury—me—but—you can’t. I—I’ll tell you what I did—I strangled him—like
that (he clutched my throat). I threw him out of the car. He—he tried—to
stab me with—with my own jack-knife—he tried to cut the rope—but I can
go too quick—up a rope—anyway—trailing—stalking—you see how I can come
here when I must have that name. That is _my_ name—it belongs to
me—me—it does. Give it to me—or—or I—it’s your town as much as mine—I
kept it from getting—disgraced you’re a coward if you’re a-scared of
storms—I rode a storm—I did—and I tracked you here—you are—_you’re_ a
thief—you are! Give me my name—Tom Slade—I hunt for—that. I trailed it—I
am _Tomasso_!”

I removed his weakening fingers from my throat and, standing, stroked
his shoulders soothingly. Every part of him was shaking and he was
breathing like a dog. He had to toss his head back to gulp out his
excitement and he kept closing one eye in a nervous manner, most
distressing to see.

“You _must_ be quiet,” I said, “and get your wet clothes off. Shh— I’ll
give you your name (for I thought it best to humor him) as soon as you
do that. Hold up your arm—so; so I can get your coat off. Now sit down,
quietly. There. It’s because you are tired—that’s all. Don’t think about
anything, just....”

But he would not sit down, only laid his head upon the back of the great
chair and sobbed like a baby. I made no effort to dissuade him for I
knew that was just the effect of his exhausting tirade. I assumed, of
course, that he had been talking nonsense....

                  *       *       *       *       *

    Copy of cable despatch which I sent to Roy Blakeley on the
    fourth day following the incidents related in the last
    chapter.

            “Tom Slade alive sick will recover am writing.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

Following is my last letter to Roy Blakeley, written at the little inn
of Hans Twann above St. Craix village in Switzerland:

Dear Roy:

I sent you a cable via Paris and Rouen. Tom Slade is alive and with me
here in Switzerland. I waited four days before sending the cable in
order that there might be no shadow of uncertainty about the facts,
which seemed hardly believable. I think this will go through to you
without much delay since the armistice has been signed. But you’ll
probably not see us for several months.

Tom is in care of the physician in Solothurn, the nearest town of any
size, and I am sure he is in good hands. He cannot leave here for
several weeks, however, and when he does we shall probably be delayed in
France in connection with getting his discharge or at least an extended
furlough. I understand the censorship is off, so this should come to you
unopened but in any case keep the whole business close until I return. I
have already written a sketch of Tom’s adventures for you but if there
is no objection in any quarter I would like to publish this whole
extraordinary business, first and last.

I can hardly collect my own mind sufficiently to give you a straight
account of this amazing climax of Tom’s career, and I will not now tell
you anything contained in the several batches of story I mean to hand
you. For you might as well know the whole thing. Tom himself is in no
condition to talk and contradicts himself a great deal. But of the
essential truth of what he tells me there can be no doubt.

He is suffering from shock incident to the terrible experience he had
and this, I think, was aggravated by an injury to his head which he had
previously sustained.

In the neighborhood where this final experience of his occurred it is
current among the French peasants that the body of Slade fell from the
clouds ten minutes after his machine crashed to earth. I mentioned this
supposed superstition in the narrative which I shall give you, saying
that such a thing was manifestly impossible. It is a fact, however, that
the victim fell ten minutes after Tom’s machine descended. _But the
victim was not Tom Slade._ You’ll hardly credit your senses when you
read this, but the body which fell on the rocky hillside was none other
than that of Toby Schmitt, son of Adolph Schmitt, the Bridgeboro grocer!

This unspeakable young scoundrel was in the German service and was the
moving spirit of their spy activities along a front of a hundred miles
or more. He was, in fact, the Captain Toby, or Monsieur le Capitaine,
whom you shall hear of in my narrative. Tom learned of this young
traitor’s presence along the front where he was on a secret mission in
France and saw his photograph, which he instantly recognized. He also
learned the means by which he might identify this arch villain—a double
cross on the observation balloon which he often used.

As nearly as I can gather from Tom (for he has to be handled carefully
still), the machine he was pursuing ascended into the clouds where,
apparently, its occupant was to seek orders from the balloon which was
anchored there. But of that, of course, he is not certain. He downed the
enemy flier and was about to shoot at the balloon when something
happened to his machine gun. You may imagine his chagrin at finding
himself thus helpless, especially when he noticed two black crosses on
the balloon’s car.

I think he must have been in a frenzy of rage and desperate resolution
to do what he did. I am hoping that later he will be able to give a
clearer account of it, and the doctor assures me that he will be. I
gather that he circled about the cable of the balloon until finally in
some way he was able to get hold of it. That he should have sacrificed
his plane and trusted himself to this cable is an evidence of his
towering resolve. The doctor thinks that even at that time his mental
state was perhaps not quite normal.

In any event, he knew what he was going to do. That he raised himself,
hand over hand, up that cable there seems no doubt. And he got into the
car. He says that “Schmitty” which was the name he knew young Schmitt by
in Bridgeboro, was frantic with fear, and so he must have been to see
this redoubtable creature lifting himself up through that cloud-filled
air and finally coming aboard like a pirate over the side of a ship. Yet
he dared not cut the rope for that would be to release his balloon and
put it at the mercy of the wind.

Before Tom was yet within the car, Schmitt, who was apparently unarmed,
or at least unprepared, reached down and secured the knife which Tom
carried in his pocket. Tom was powerless to prevent this since his hands
were upon the rope. _This is an American Boy Scout knife_ and I myself
later found it in the wreck of the balloon.

Tom says Schmitt tried to stab him with it. Of the frightful combat
which took place in that car we can only imagine the details. Tom
himself goes to pieces whenever he tries to talk about it. It was a case
of one or the other—there seems little doubt of that. And in the end
Schmitt either fell or was thrown out of the car. He must have been
clutching at Tom’s neck as he fell for he tore away the cord on which
hung Tom’s Scout cross and identification disk. These things were later
picked up by the Germans who removed Schmitt’s body. Schmitt had a watch
bearing the initials of his name, T. S., and to this was fastened a
wallet containing some of his treasonable papers. He had also been
corresponding with some girl in Bridgeboro and part of one of her
letters, together with a photograph, were found in the wallet.

All of these matters you shall find in the story which I hope soon to
give you and the circumstances attending the discovery of these things
and my own connection with them, will surprise you greatly.

I shall write no more now, for indeed I find it hard to set these things
down. Tom is getting better each day, he talks of you very much, and
looks forward to the day when he can be a scoutmaster. All through the
days of his sorrowful weakness and distraction the war has been a thing
forgotten, and it is hard to arouse in him memories of those last days
of his military career. But of scouting and of you he thinks continually
and never tires of talking. And I always call him Tomasso because, he
says, it reminds him of you.




             POSTSCRIPT—WRITTEN AFTER MY RETURN TO AMERICA


I shall not prolong this narrative with an account of our return through
France, though it is quite likely that I may, at another time, detail
one or two of the rather surprising adventures which we encountered on
that remarkable journey. For what seemed to me good and sufficient
reasons, our progress was made as surreptitiously as possible, it being
my intention to keep the whole business quiet until we should report at
Chalons which was where Tom had been stationed.

But, as you probably know, if you have seen any of those misleading news
items, we were arrested at Langres. Here our pleasant hike through the
hills, which I had counted upon to restore Tom’s mental repose, was
rudely brought to an end by the preposterous charge that I was assisting
a deserter. The matter was straightened out in an hour, of course, and
is too ridiculous to dwell upon. Even the army medical men, who should
have known better, smiled annoyingly when I stated, what was the plain
truth, that it had simply been my intention to afford Tom a few days of
the old woods life which he loved before presenting him to the
authorities. And I have to thank his own irrational stubbornness and
crying rebellion, that he was not taken from me altogether.

The incident is of no consequence, but I think you must already have
discovered that Tom’s memories of scouting, even when he was at his
worst, formed the one link which bound his fitful and disordered mind to
former days. Indeed, it was by this means that I began the task of
nursing and diverting him. The merest mention of a camp fire or casual
reference to a trail found always a ready response and I have learned
myself to love Nature and all her beneficent influences and soothing
voices, for the knowledge of how she dwelt constantly in the poor brain
which could hold naught else.

It remains only to say that the task which I began has been triumphantly
completed by a keen-eyed old man who presides over Temple Camp in the
Catskills—Uncle Jeb, the boys call him. And if anyone in this war-torn
world could bring peace and poise to a distracted soul, Jeb Rushmore is
that man.

And this brings me to my final task of gathering up the few loose
threads of my tale, a thing which I could not do save for Tom’s complete
recovery. Straightway upon our return to Bridgeboro, Mr. Ellsworth, that
indefatigable scoutmaster, took him up to Temple Camp, where he and
Uncle Jeb are now busy getting the big camp ready for the influx of
scouts which begins about June.

Roy, Mr. Ellsworth and I lost no time in discussing the proposition of
publishing this whole story, and there seemed but one obstacle to our
doing so. This was Margie Clayton, as sweet and patriotic a girl as ever
lived, and what good end could be served by proclaiming to the world
that the young fellow whom she had liked and trusted was a sneak and a
traitor? Evidently she had cared for young Schmitt—there is no
accounting for tastes, and girls are funny things. It was Roy, bully
scout that he is, who put the clincher upon this discussion by reminding
us of some rule or other that a scout must be kind and chivalrous.

And it was Miss Margie herself who took the clincher off. How she
learned the truth about Schmitt I have never discovered, but she made
known in very unmistakable terms that the fate of the whole Schmitt
family was nothing to her and that she was very sorry she had ever
wasted a good photograph and a good sheet of notepaper on such a
creature. As for the photograph, it was not exactly wasted for I
returned it to her, and the last time I saw it was during one of my
visits to Temple Camp where it hung in a birchbark frame in Tom’s cabin.
I did not ask him how it got there.

So, the way being clear, we went ahead with our publishing enterprise
and I will conclude with one or two scraps of information which I have
lately had from Tom. One is in answer to the question of how the cable
of the balloon was broken. He thinks now that he must have cut this
himself in savage desperation, fearing that Toby Schmitt would return
after falling from the car. If, indeed, he did such a thing he must, of
course, have been stark mad, and it is awful to think of him, the prey
of such maniac fury, being carried, a lone prisoner in that little car,
through clouds and darkness, who shall say how high, and for how long,
and finally cast like a shipwrecked mariner upon those lonely mountains.

The harrowing story of that awful night can only be imagined, and
perhaps it is better so. No doubt, it is one of God’s mercies that Tom
should never recall all that happened in that insane combat among the
clouds, and in the frightful journey which followed. He believes that he
was in the air through another day, but I think that unlikely unless,
indeed, the fugitive balloon was born hither and yon upon the changing
winds before landing. All he knows is that he crawled out from under
that tangled wreckage in the darkness of night.

One or two trifling details he remembers more closely. I asked him how
Toby Schmitt happened to wear an American uniform and he said that
evidently it was the custom of that unspeakable creature to wear not
only the American, but the French and British uniforms, as occasion and
the work in hand suggested. It was the sight of Schmitt in Uncle Sam’s
outfit which enraged Tom to the point of uncontrollable fury, but
whether this was one of the causes or just a result of his nervous state
I cannot say. He tells me that in Schmitt’s room in the Grigou cottage
there was the uniform of an English lieutenant, and the jacket of an
American Y. M. C. A. worker.

But enough of Schmitt; my pen rebels at the task of recalling his
villainy. As for the tattered German coat which Tom wore, he supposes
that he found it in the car. He says that his own coat was torn away by
Schmitt in the struggle and no doubt this was so, since we know that the
wretch also wrenched away the cord bearing his scout badge and
identification disk.

There is only one more question and neither Tom nor myself could have
any answer for it. It is whether the Germans really believed that they
had discovered Slade, when in fact the body was that of their own man.
Very likely they really thought it was Slade for, of course, Schmitt
could not have been known to every subordinate in the German service,
and doubtless he was disfigured beyond identification as the result of
his tragic fall. Where his own mark of identification was, I have no
guess, though perhaps, being a spy, he wore none.

It is a matter of rueful memory with me that I should have reverently
laid a “tribute from our Bridgeboro scouts” upon the grave of that young
scoundrel. But perhaps a better spirit of Christian charity should
incline me to cherish no such angry regrets and I will not begrudge him
the few flowers which I left there as a token of the far-off town where
he was born.

Indeed, I am not of a mood for unavailing bitterness for the cruel war
is over and the springtime is come and the flowers are coming forth and
the birds are singing in the trees as if to lure one’s thoughts away
from the horrid nightmare. And last Saturday Roy and I made the trip up
to Temple Camp to see old Uncle Jeb and visit Tom in his retreat among
those silent, lonely hills.

Not a soul was thereabout as we rowed across the lake to the camp shore,
and the cabins and pavilion stood reflected in the black water and all
the surrounding woods seemed permeated with a solemn stillness. It was
at the day’s end and the frogs were sending up their harsh croakings out
of the marshy places—those discordant voices which accord so fittingly
with the quiet and the dusk.

“When the frogs begin croaking,” said Roy, “then you know that pretty
soon the scouts will begin coming.”

We found Uncle Jeb smoking his pipe under the lean-to of the boarded-up
cooking shack looking for all the world as if he were waiting for some
rattling old stage-coach which he was to pilot across the scorching
western plain. There was peace in his keen gray eyes and a refreshing
whiff of the prairies in his brown, furrowed skin and drooping, gray
moustache.

“Waiting for the boys to come, Uncle Jeb?” I asked, after the greeting.

“They’ll be comin’ purty quick naow, I reckin,” he drawled.

“Find it lonesome here?”

“’Tain’t never lonesome,” he said, “but I like to see the youngsters
coming.”

“I suppose you know that Roy and I together are going to write some
stories about Temple Camp,” I ventured, as a pleasantry.

He looked at Roy with a humorous twinkle in his eye.

“And we’re going to put you in, Uncle Jeb,” said Roy.

“Thar’s a youngster over yonder would fit into a story-book,” Uncle Jeb
drawled, “kind of a char-ac-ter, as you might say. Lives over thar
through the woods whar you see the smoke goin’.”

He told us we would probably find Tom over that way for he had gone
after milk. So we took our way along the woods path, which was filled
with memories for Roy, until we came to a road with open country beyond,
which, being private land, he had never crossed before. Perhaps a
hundred yards or so distant stood an old white farmhouse with the
familiar paraphernalia of barnyard and adjacent outbuildings, making, I
thought, a pleasant scene of old-fashioned farm life.

As we followed the cowpath across the fields we became aware of two
figures sitting on a rail fence, and I waved my hand to Tom, who
answered with a cheery greeting to us both. It was good to see him
looking so hale and ruddy.

But it was in a kind of trance that I saw him lower himself from the
fence to come and meet us. For a second I stood gaping, then grasped
Roy’s arm in speechless amazement. For there before me, swinging his
legs from the fence, was Archibald Archer!

Yes, it was none other than Archibald Archer as large as life, larger,
in fact, with his freckled face lighted up so that he was just one
enormous grin; Archibald Archer, home from the wars, and once more
enthroned among his favorite apple trees which ere long must pay him
their luscious tribute. His feet were quite bare, he wore trousers of
gaudy bed tick with suspenders brazenly conspicuous, and a straw hat as
big as a parachute.

“Well—I’m flabbergasted!” I managed to gasp as I took his proffered
hand; “I knew your home was near Temple Camp, but I didn’t know how
near.”

“I’m mustered out,” he informed me.

“I think I like you even better in your ancestral domains,” I said,
shaking his hand with right good will, “and I congratulate you that you
are back in your orchards once more. I might have known that it would
take more than a world war to kill _you_. Tell me, how is the souvenir
business?

“I got some mustarrd gas in a vinegarr jarr,” he said. “Want to see it?”

“Thank you,” I answered, “but I have had enough gas for one war. I think
you are yourself quite enough of a souvenir for me. I shall not lose
track of you again. Roy and I intend to put you where we can always have
you handy.” And I winked at my young literary partner.

“I got a piece of wirre from a wirreless, too,” Archer persisted, as if
his store was inexhaustible.

The doubtful nature of this last-mentioned memento gave me an
uncomfortable feeling that I was being made fun of, so I retorted with
severe sarcasm, “I do not care for that, but if you have a ring or two
from the bell of Rheims Cathedral I might be willing to accept it.”

“If you want to see the belles,” he said, “come to the barrn dance on
Saturrday night.”

It was useless trying to down him.

“And how are all your friends on the other side?” I inquired, venturing
upon a new tack. “Sir Douglas Haig and Papa Clemenceau? I hope they are
quite well.”

“Pretty smarrt,” he answered, “but they couldn’t come home with me on
account of being busy.”

“Too bad,” said I; “and General Pershing and your old college chum,
Marshal Foch—how are they?”

“Fine and dandy. They sent theirr kind regarrds to you.”

“Their kind what?” said Tom in that sober way of his.

“Regarrrrds!” repeated Archer.

“Once more,” said Tom.

But for answer Archer toppled him off the fence, where he had reseated
himself, to the amusement of Roy, who sat down on the ground, drew his
knees up, clasped his hands about them, and laughed so that he shook.

“Humpty Dumpty Tomasso,” he said.

And, do you know, I think that right there, with Roy Blakeley laughing
his merry laugh and the famous, patent-applied-for scout smile spread
all over his roguish face, is the place to end this rambling story. For
in that laugh, as in the spring breeze, there is promise. And if you
will but hold your hand to your ear, scout fashion, and fancy that you
can hear his joyous uproar, you may take it as a reminder that the
bloody warpath has, after all, brought us back to the solemn, friendly
trees and the placid lake of the beloved camp once more, and that we are
parting but to meet again in the scouts’ own season, which is the good
old summertime.