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, slade compressed his lips and said nothing. that matter is a mystery to me. he made few friends in the hospital, because of his natural taciturnity, and also because of his mental depression.
he was well on toward recovery, however, when the bomb was dropped which killed two of the nurses. there seems to be no authority for his vowing vengeance against the hostile fliers, but he is remembered to have said that he “knew it was that man’s work.”
he was discharged from the hospital as cured, and after some difficulty succeeded in being reinstated in the flying corps, with a combat plane, which was now his one desire. “i got a special reason,” captain whitloss says he told him. those are the last words which i have heard of as coming from tom slade.
of the circumstances attending his last adventure you are already aware, and save for a bit of lurid coloring, the newspaper account seems to be about correct. he rose in pursuit of the hun plane from jonchery, west of rheims, but there seems to be no reason to suppose that he knew who, in particular, he was pursuing.
both planes passed out of sight above the clouds and shortly thereafter the enemy plane was seen to fall. it fell in la toi, as the news article stated, just within the allied lines. its occupant, a german named otto brenner, was in the wreckage, quite dead. the fuel tank of his plane had been shot through.
about ten minutes afterward slade’s empty machine came fluttering down, turned turtle and plunged headlong to earth. it did not fall upon a “rocky hillside” as the paper stated, but in a field within the allied lines. the body of tom slade was seen to fall separately but there can be no truth in the declaration which one heard in rheims (especially among children) that it descended ten minutes after the plane fell. such a thing would be manifestly impossible.
it is true that a german airman, flying over the american lines, dropped the cap said to have been worn by slade. in it were his identification disk, corresponding to the number against his name in the army files, and the gold cross which he won while a scout. the germans found his body half way up a rocky slope and buried it in pevy which now is in the hands of americans. i visited the grave which had a little white wooden cross above it on which his name is carved in rough letters, very german. i understand his name was sent to them across no man’s land under a white flag after his identity has been ascertained from his disk number. so maybe fritzie has a soft spot, after all.
for your sake i laid a little wreath upon the grave and wrote on a piece of bark (which i think you told me is the scouts’ writing material) that it was from the troop in bridgeboro.
