"Well, they put those words in their pipes and smoked them—knowing, of course, that I was very much alive and almost within a stone's throw.
"I had always pretended not to understand German: thought ignorance of the language might serve my plans some day or other. The chap they sent to fetch me dropped a few words to a doctor in my hearing. And so, though I wasn't told where I was being taken or why I was to go, I'd about caught on to the fact that I was supposed to have invented the plans for a new bombing biplane. That made me wonder if a friend was at work under the rose: and I was ready for anything when I got to the scene of the smash.
"Fortunately, none of the Bosches on the spot could speak English fluently, and I appeared more of a fool at French than German. Herter—entirely trusted by his German pals—was told off to talk English with me; and a flash of his eye said, here was the friend! It was only a flash, and I couldn't be sure, but it put me on the qui vive. I noticed that in asking me the question he was told to ask, he emphasized certain words which needed no emphasis, and spoke them slowly, with a look that made me determine to fix each one in my mind. This I did, and putting them together when I got the chance, I made out, 'I want to get you home. Say you invented this model, and could put the thing in working trim.'
"That was a big order! If I said it and could keep my word, would it be a patriotic job to present the enemy with a perfectly good machine, of a new make, in the place of a wreck they didn't understand? This was my first thought. But the second reminded me of a sentence I'd constructed with some of the emphasized words; 'I want to get you home.' How did he expect to get me home—if not by air?
"With that I caught a glimpse of the plan, as one sometimes catches sight of the earth through a break in massed clouds when flying. If the man meant to help me, I would help him. If he turned out a fraud, the Germans shouldn't profit by his treachery I'd stop that game at the last moment, if I died for it!
"You will know nothing about the new and curious bombing biplane of super-speed invented by Leroy Harman of Galbraith, Texas. But Father knows as much as any one not an expert in aeronautics can know. When the Government wouldn't believe in Harman, Father financed him by my advice. I left home for France before the trial machine that was to convince officialdom had come into being; and I didn't even know whether it had made good. But the minute I saw what lay on the ground, surrounded by a ring of Germans, I said to myself; 'Good old Leroy!'
"I'd seen so much of his plans that they remained printed on my brain, and I could—if I would—set that biplane on its wings again almost as easily as if I had invented it.
"Odd that the Bosches and I both trusted Herter, seeing he must be false to one side or other! But he's that sort of man. And I always take a tip from my own instinct before listening to my reason. Maybe that's why I didn't do badly in my brief career as a flier. Anyhow, I played up to Herter; and I got the job of superintending the reconstruction of poor Harman's damaged machine. It was a lovely job for a prisoner, though they watched me as a German cat would watch an Allied mouse. Herter was nearly always on the spot, however, for he'd made himself responsible for me. Also, he'd offered to pump me about what was best in the air world on my side of the water: how many aeroplanes of different sorts America could turn out in six months, etc. We contrived a cypher on diagrams I made. It was a clever one, but the credit was Herter's.
"The Bosches were waiting impatiently for my work to be done, in order to try out the machine, and if satisfactory, spawn a brood of their own on the same model. I was equally impatient. I hoped to fly off with the biplane before they had time to copy it!
"A wounded Ace of theirs, Anton Hupfer, was for ever hanging round. He was to take up the 'plane when it was ready. But Herter industriously chummed with him, and not for nothing. To Herter was due the 'discovery' of the inventor; and as he boasted experience in flying, he asked the privilege of being Hupfer's companion on the trial trip.