“it was just like you; i knew you’d get stuck,” were the consoling words which slade uttered to archer. “you should have gone by the ridge road and you’d have been all right.”
“yes, and where would you have landed if it hadn’t been forr me?” archer very properly replied. “you’d have been tearrin’ arround the sky and maybe got stranded on marrs for all i know.”
“don’t roll your r’s so much,” slade replied. “can’t you say mars?”
“it was good to see him again,” archer told me, “and hearr him talk in that funny, soberr way he had. he was always kidding me about r’s.” indeed, it would be hard to say who was the rescuer and who the rescued in this extraordinary business. i suppose it may be said that they rescued each other.
“what are we going to do now?” archer asked. “i’ve got to get to brienne if i can, or go all the way to paris if i have to. they won’t do a thing but wing us in paris. i say, keep out of paris.”
which was very good advice, first and last, and more than one boy in khaki had heard it.
“do you know wherre we arre?” archer asked.
“i know about where we are,” slade answered. “throw your searchlight over there. see that kind of black——”
“yes, i see it,” archer interrupted.
“i think that’s the hills near barsaby,”[5] tom replied. “wait till i see what time it is. there’ll be a train leaving there about eleven, going down to chatillon. it whistles just before it goes in the tunnel. if i hear that i can tell about where we are.”
“maybe it can’t run,” archer reminded him.
“it’s got to run—that’s a commissary centre,” slade said. “and it’s right along the mountains anyway.” he looked at his watch and saw that it was fifteen minutes of eleven.
“what do you mean to do?” archer asked, a bit puzzled.
“if i hear that whistle, i can tell just about where we are,” slade said. “if it sounds kind of dim south of here i’ll know we’re just about east of troyes. i know we’re east of troyes but i can’t tell if we’re a little north or a little south of it. i’d rather use my ears than a compass a night like this. i can run her straight west all right, right into the wind, but if i’ve got to climb upstairs i want to know it.”
archer did not fully understand, nor indeed did i, except i infer that slade intended to measure the almost exact distance to a certain place (bar-sur-aube) by the whistle of a locomotive and to lay his aerial course accordingly. i think that here was another instance of the value of his woods lore and scout training.
that he did this thing, archer assures me. the rain was at last holding up and the gale subsiding into a brisk, steady wind out of the west, and they sat, these two, in the two seats of the plane, and chatted about old times, there in that desolate submerged meadow. and here is something that will please you.
“he was talking about bridgeboro, wherre he used to live,” said archer, “and a fellerr he knew therre that got him into the boy scouts a long time ago. roy blakeley was that fellerr’s name.” so you see that far away in the devastated, scourged land of france, your name was given to the same wind which was to bear these two adventurers to their destination. and so, chatting, they waited in the lonely darkness.
“the job will be getting her started,” slade said.
“how about landing?” archer asked him.
“it’ll be easier now i’ve got somebody with me. got your dispatch book?”
of course archer had.
“then go and get a spoke out of your wheel or maybe the timer-bar would be better. get two or three spokes. you’ve got your clippers all right, haven’t you? go ahead. i’ll tell you when you get back. get some wire off your mudguard, too.”
“there was only one way to do with slady,” archer observes. “you had to do just what he said.”
so he waded through the soggy field to where his motorcycle, half sunken in the mud which had been a road, stood “pokin’ upwarrd,” as he said, “like an old balky horrse.” its carbureter and gas tank must have been filled with mud by now and there was no hope of getting a kick out of it even if he could have extricated it. with his nippers he clipped off several spokes and removed also the long nickel rod by which the timer was controlled at the handle bar. this was about three feet long. he took also the wire and his nippers.
scarcely had he returned when they were both struck silent by the thin, spent sound of a locomotive whistle far in the distance.
“you’re all right, slady!” archer exclaimed in admiration.
“it’s comin’ across the wind,” said slade. “we’ve got to allow for that.” he screwed up his mouth sideways, archer said, and looked for all the world like a “regularr old grandmotherr with his goggles up on his forrehead.”
“it’s all right,” he said finally, “we’re all right now if we can only get her out of here. these old hun ice wagons weigh about a hundred tons. if we fly straight west we’ll strike troyes in half an hour. even if we don’t just strike it, we’ll see the glare and that’s all i care about. we can land in the school[6] just outside the town. they’ll have the four lights on account of a patrol being out, maybe. we’ll have to take our chances with the patrol. we can fly square and there won’t be any draft, that’s one good thing.”
i think you will see from his talk what he hoped to do. he knew that they were not far east of troyes, the most considerable place between them and paris. here, undoubtedly, there would be communication with the metropolis. and he knew of a landing place there—the school with its corner lights. there were also anti-aircraft guns there, as he knew perfectly well, but he hoped to anticipate their shots. he knew he could fly directly west without much difficulty and that there was probably no place in this route with anti-aircraft equipment so far, so good. if they could only get started. but was he a little north or south of troyes or directly east of it? if he flew due west would he come within the guiding radius of its glare? a mile or so north or south of the town would make no difference, so far as seeing its composite glare was concerned, but then he would have to take the wind in one quarter or another and run across it. and that he wished to avoid. indeed, he might have avoided it, by going above the current, out of the wind and into the clouds. but how could he see the four guiding lights then?
in a word he wished to fly due west and hit his destination as a bullet hits its mark. perhaps if he had been an experienced airman he would not have felt it needful to do this, especially since the weather was quieter. perhaps he was a little unnerved by his experience so far. be that as it might, one thing he knew from his knowledge of the roads and the country, gleaned when he was serving as messenger. he knew that troyes was thirty or forty miles west of the hill town of bar-sur-aube, but a trifle north of it—about five miles, he thought. and he determined how far north he was from bar-sur-aube by the distant whistle of a locomotive. and the sequel proved, as you shall see, that his ear was tuned to the fraction of a mile.
i understand that in considering slade’s rather irregular application for his brevet papers after this affair, it was submitted by an instructor lieutenant that he had accomplished his feat by a “trick of the scout rather than of the aviator.” did you ever hear such nonsense? indeed, if that is so, then all i have to say is, three cheers for the scouts!
but to return. slade and archer made half a dozen or so “flaming arrows,” as archer called them, using the same idea that slade had used for his missives. the principal one of these was that in which they used the nickel time-bar and on this they exerted special inventive effort archer’s shirt was wound into a tight wad so as to hold the flames longer, and was put to soak in the replenished can of gasolene. to one end of the rod was fastened a note written by slade, but composed by both. this momentous and very characteristic missive archer thinks he can yet procure by reason of his “being in soft” with certain high signal corps officials. if he succeeds i will certainly bring it home to you. in any case, this is what it said:
two americans are up here in a hun machine. escaped in it from azoudange prison. have news and messages for transmission to paris. also hun airman’s roller-map kept from damage. we want to make a landing so don’t shoot. if everything is all right give us plenty of lights and fire three shots. if any questions, fire shots in morse code. we’ll answer by dropping more notes. but hurry. this is written on american messenger’s dispatch blank. also notice nickel rod is from distance type b american motorcycle.
thomas slade,
signal corps messenger service.
archibald archer,
signal corps messenger service.
other smaller notes were prepared and “mounted” and it was agreed that it should be archer’s duty to drop these conciliatory bombs one after another into the school field near troyes. they had purposely refrained from mentioning that only one of them had escaped in the plane, for that would have necessitated mentioning their extraordinary meeting and might have aroused suspicion.
having prepared these communications and manufactured their “bombs” by attaching rags from their clothing, they proceeded with what seemed the all but hopeless task of getting started. in this matter archer’s headlight proved invaluable. with its aid an exploration of the submerged field was made and they found that a short distance from where they were it sloped up and was quite clear of the water for an area of a few yards.
to the edge of this higher land they moved the machine, one at either end of the plane, and set it facing into the wind.
the rain had almost ceased now, but the sky was still thick with little flaky clouds. archer climbed into his seat and slade buckled him in, giving him part of the oilskin tarpaulin for such protection as it might afford him. a moment later they were off, gliding along the field until presently, as archer says, he saw the smooth black water of the meadows beneath him and knew that they were gathering height.
“he kept one hand on a leverr,” said archer, “and watched the compass by the light of the little electric bulb near it i saw we werre heading straight west, but i couldn’t talk on account of the noise. i knew we werre going higherr and higherr, and it scarred me, kind of, that everything was darrk all around.”
but there was a little bright spot near the compass and the pilot had his eye fixed on that. archer said he watched the altimétre and felt “nerrvous, sorrt of,” as the plane climbed higher and higher into the black heavens.
5. bar-sur-aube.
6. he meant, of course, the big aviation school.
