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.”
