slade made his report of this business while lying in the epemay hospital. this i have not seen, but captain whitloss has told me of it. by reason of the character of slade’s mission, neither he nor anyone else talked of it and even the surgeons and nurses knew nothing of his late exploit, more than that he had sustained a serious injury while flying.
“as soon as i saw that piece of wood,” he told the captain, “i knew it was swamp larch. that always grows near water and usually high up. i thought it must have been right close to the gun, in front of it, because it caught some of the fire. i could even smell the powder. i thought maybe it was a part of the camouflaging in front. anyway it was torn off a limb, anyone could see that, and was near enough to get burned. in scouting they always tell things by signs. she picked it up when it fell off the thatch roof and they had to chuck a couple of buckets of water up there because the thatch was starting. she couldn’t pick it up at first, it was so hot.
“i knew there wasn’t any larch at all where i’d been ’cause if there had been i’d have seen it—wouldn’t i?”
the captain said he supposed so.
“there was only one thing to do and that was to start with the brook and follow it up. i had to start back that night under signed orders so there wasn’t much time. i knew if there were any swamp larches i’d find them that way—see? and then i’d find out how a chunk like that could get torn off and all charred, and be blown two or three miles maybe. i knew what to do then ’cause i had something to go by. that’s a scout sign, kind of.”
he certainly made good use of his scout sign. in less than two minutes, they tell me, he had picked up his trail at the little trickle of a spring whence they got their drinking water. it came down between rocks, a mere dribble of water, as if from a leaky faucet. i saw this, what there was to it, and how he managed to trace it through all its intricate windings, i am sure i do not know.
i tried to follow it up myself and got just fifteen feet by a tape measure when it ran under a flat rock.
this trickle led him, as he thought it would, to the brook from which it branched off. he had crossed this during the day, but, of course, had not followed it, for there had been no reason to do so. it led him for about three miles through a densely wooded section where he kept a continual watch for larches and cedars. but there were none to be seen and no point of elevation commanding a prospect to the south.
he at last reached a place where the brook ran far below him between rocks and he followed its course through this ravine with great difficulty until he came to a point where it appeared to emerge out of a sort of cave or tunnel and he climbed down to examine it.
he found that the ravine which he had been following branched out of this larger ravine and that this latter had been roofed with boards and logs and brush, forming a sort of covered tunnel, which was completely concealed save at this point of juncture where the brook emerged into the narrower way. he was now hot upon the trail though he probably gave no sign of excitement.
he judged by the stars, he said, that this covered ravine ran north and south and if it did and ran fairly straight, its northern end would be somewhere in the neighborhood of the railroad village of le chesne, or at least near the line of trail thereabout, while its southern end would be at the steep slope of the hills southward.
he entered the passage and found that the brook trickled along here not much wider than in the narrower ravine, and that the bed of the passage was hard and fairly flat. he reached above him and pressed against the artificial covering. cross-pieces had been wedged between the converging rock at intervals, two or three feet below the upper surface and between these he could feel the considerable thickness of brush which lay overhead. wagons could easily pass here, as safe from aerial observation as a rabbit in his burrow. and so this sunken road and what it led to might be used almost to the last minute as the irresistible line of marshall foch advanced.
tom discovers a big gun.
the rest was easy, yet it is characteristic of slade that he called himself a fool for not having smelled out this covered ravine in his wanderings. it was dark and musty inside, the little brook meandering aimlessly from one side to the other, with pools here and there, and the foliage overhead emitting a pungent, rotten odor from its soaking in the recent heavy rains. some of our own boys, you may be interested to know, recently passed through this very ravine in their advance toward tourteron. but one look inside it was enough for me.
slade hurried through it, parting the matted roofing now and then for a glimpse of the guiding stars, and was assured that the passage led almost due north. and somewhere along this dark, sickening way, he was siezed with hauting doubts, lest he be pursuing a phantom. what he sought was so great and the clue to if so trifling! “but i remembered how indian scouts would follow a trail a hundred miles just because they found a hair sticking to a bramble,” he told his superiors. and so he hurried on, on, with hope sometimes mounting, sometimes falling.
after he had gone what he thought was nearly two miles there came a welcome freshness in the air which much relieved him, and he soon saw the clear sky overhead. before him, to the south, the open country spread away and in the distance he could distinguish two or three tiny lights which he thought were within the allied lines.
the ravine opened into a spacious basin filled partly by a small lake and enclosed by dense woods. he followed the guiding stream out of the dank passage and found that it had its source in this lofty little sheet of water nestling almost at the very brink of a steep decline. in its black, placid bosom his guiding stars were reflected and a sombre tree of swamp larch cast its inverted shadow in the water.
farther back there were others—larches and cedars. “good old scouts, i told ’em,” slade said afterwards; “they love the water, same as i do.” so there, master roy blakeley, scout and would-be author—there is the sequel of your temple camp and your black lake and your silent, companionable trees.
tom slade saw the lay of the land clearly enough now. this covered ravine was in fact the lofty crevice between two hills, and from the distant allied lines its end must have taken the form of a great rough v high up where those twin hills parted. there was no suggestion of this upon close inspection, but it is a faculty of the scout to see in his mind’s eye a bird’s-eye view of the locality he is studying. thus the scout has always two pairs of eyes.
what tom slade saw about him was just a lake amid woods rising on either side, east and west, and below him, southward, an expanse of open country. in the little jungle of crowded brush, which from a distance must have seemed to half fill that big v, stood a great, ugly thing swathed in canvas. it poked its big nose up slanting-ways at the stars as if to threaten those friendly monitors of the night for helping this weary young fellow who stood leaning against it, trying to realize his good fortune. all about it and over it the brush and foliage clustered, as if ashamed to own its presence in their still, obscure retreat; and in front of it, between it and the steep decline, a graceful larch tree stood in all its silent, supple dignity. from one of its lower spreading limbs a broken branch hung loose, the splintered remnant blowing to and fro in the night.
“it seemed as if it must hurt,” said slade to captain whitloss, “and i felt kind of as if i ought to go and bandage it up—especially as it did me such a good turn, as you might say....”
