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.