“Soak it in gas! Use your bean. Let me have it,” cried Davis, and he snatched it out of my hand and soaked it with gas, but still it would not work. Disgusted, he threw it on the ground with a vehement oath, and took his spite out by trying to kick the rubber tire off one of the landing wheels. Snatching it up again I struck it sharply against a piece of the metal cowling on the motor with the hope that by some miracle this hasty remedy might help it. It was just luck, for something did the work. Whether it was hitting it on the metal or not, I do not guess, but when I gave it a brisk turn it bursted into flame, and my hands also being covered with gasoline, began to burn, too. I dropped it like a piece of hot steel and Davis snatched it up and threw it into the gasoline soaked cockpit. Soon the $20,000 plane was a roaring furnace. It was like the last act of a big motion picture—the criminals at bay were fighting for time against the mob and like the hardboiled leader of the villains laughs in the face of his pursuers while he goes to his self-inflicted death rather than deliver himself, so I turned around, knowing there was no escape from the mob, determined to die in the wreckage. Already Davis was beating it across the field to the left, crying “Come on! Come on!” and so, while I did not have much pep left I started to run toward a sort of rude embankment over toward the left center, which was not over two hundred yards away. Fortunately the burning plane momentarily threw the crowd back, for they knew if there were bombs aboard they would soon explode.
The heavy flying suit was causing me trouble, for I was stumbling through the mud like an intoxicated elephant, but even at that I am inclined, now, to think that I beat the intercollegiate record for the one hundred yards dash. As I rushed around this embankment, I hit something which landed me on the ground in a puddle of mud. What I hit was a horse, which was one of five being ridden by four officers and one sergeant, who had come from another nearby village to get us. These horses stepped all over and around me, and I thought at the time how ironical it was to have endured and lived through the hardships of the morning and have my life crushed out by a horse’s hoofs. It was the same disgustingly disgraceful death that I have always feared since the war, namely of being hit by a Ford automobile on a quiet, country road after coming through the war in safety. However, the horses showed true horse sense and did not step directly upon me. Of course, I stopped. I was already stopped—if not by this sudden impetus, then surely from sheer exhaustion. I got up literally covered with mud.
The senior officer of the party was a true Hun, who had undoubtedly been drinking, for I do not believe otherwise any one, regardless of nationality, could have been so cold-blooded and terrible. He could not recognize that I was American as my flying suit hid my uniform, so, he spoke up in French:
“Qui de vous a brulé l’avion, et ou est votre comrade?” I quite well understood his French, but I felt it would be better policy to say nothing, so I looked absolutely blank. Again he demanded who burned the airplane and where was my comrade, which ultimatum he sharpened by a threatening “Vite! Vite!” I realized that something was necessary on my part, for deafness would be a very lame excuse for any flyer, so, I told him in English that I did not understand him.
“Ah,” he smiled in delight, finding his prize had been even greater than he had expected, “then you are English or American. Which?”
He said this in perfect English, which upset my whole scheme of reticence, for it did not occur to me that he spoke still a third language. I said nothing, but looked at the ground, contemplating my reply.
“American or British?” he demanded.
I was proud of my nationality, so, looking up, I threw out my chest and exclaimed, “I’m American.”
I expected him to immediately recognize the strength of my citizenship, just as the wise old Biblical character, whoever he was, got out of a tight hole by saying that he was a Roman. I had a surprise awaiting me, however, for he gave me a cynical laugh that gave him an opportunity to divert from the subject in mind.
“So you are an American, are you?” he sneeringly went on. “Well, I’ve lived in your America ten years, myself, and I know you all. You’re a rotten bunch of lying hypocrites.”