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?&rdquo............