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, Sla............