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............