The b-r-r-r-r-r of an airplane—the first one to fly over the camp—caused Henry’s ear to cock for a second and then a smile to pop out of his face.
“’Ere’s one of the bloomin’ things now,” he went on. “Well, I was made a sergeant an’ arfter a bad bomin’ of Lunnon by the Fritzes six of us machines was sent to pay compliments to the Germans.
“It was dark and cold and nasty when we started out to attack Frederickshaven and give ’em some of their own medicine.
“Three hundred miles we flies an’ I’d dropped eighteen of my nineteen bums—you see I was riding with Sergeant-Major Flemming—when they opens up on us with their antiguns and five of us flops down, blazin’ and tumblin’. Then somethin’ hits me back and somethin’ else stings me arm and then I felt her wabble and flop. I glances behind and my sergeant is half fallin’ out and just as he tumbled I mikes a grab for ’im. ’E was right behint me and so as to right the machine I grips him with me teeth in his leather breetches and then I throws ’im back and swings into his seat and tramps on the pedal for rising. Up we goes to 9,000 feet, but it was too bloomin’ cold up there, so I come down some and points back for Hingland.
“The sergeant ’e were there with me, and I was glad efen if ’e had been kilt dead. You wouldn’t want ’im back there with them Booches—’im my pal and my sergeant. I wasn’t going to let the Booches have ’im.
“More’n 300 miles I had to fly—6 degrees it were—when I caught Queensborough, and then I come down. Funny about that—just as soon as I ’it the ground I fainted loike a bloomin’ lidy.
“An’ I was up in a Hinglish ’ospital in Lunnon when I come to a couple of d’ys after. An’ I wykes a bloomin’ ’ero, and the King ’e sends for me an’ some other ’eroes, and we all goes to Buckingham Palace, and ’is Majesty the King and Queen Mary and a ole bloomin’ mess of them bloomin’ dooks and lydies comes and the King pins the medal on me. Me a ’ero with a D. C. medal. And now I’m warin’ this bloomin’ kiki-ki and hopin’ to get another crack at Kaiser Bill and Fritz the sauerkraut.”
The ’ero was finally invalided out of service and ordered to the munitions factories in northern England. Having no inclination for this work, he stowed away on the Swedish bark Arendale, which was torpedoed when fifteen days out from London. He was picked up by the Dutch steamship Leander and finally landed in New Orleans. The Sun continues:
Then Harry came to New York a little over a year ago and made his abode at 157 Rivington street. By day he worked in a A-Z Motion Picture Supply Company, 72 Hester street, and by night he told brave tales of war and sang snatches of opera that he had learned behind the scenes in London.