Kindly Notify American General Headquarters that Lieutenants Raymond Davis and Elmer Haslett, Air Service, are safe prisoners of war in Germany.”
He took it, read it, and in a business-like manner wrote something over it by way of endorsement, which, he explained, meant “Censored,” and handing it back to me I read what I had written to Davis. Calling a man, who like all the other Germans we had seen so far, gave a smart salute upon entering, the officer handed him the note and muttered something in German, then hypocritically smiling, he assured us that he was sending the message direct to the airdrome to be dropped over the lines by the next patrol. His matter-of-fact attitude led us to believe that everything was a matter of course, and the incident was closed. However, after the soldier had been gone a few seconds the officer jumped up, hastened to the door and called him back. The man handed him our note and, hastily glancing at the address, the Lieutenant said smilingly, “Oh, you know, you neglected to write on the note where you want it dropped,” and handing me a pencil he continued quite concernedly, “Lucky I thought of it, wasn’t it?”
I began to see the gleam and color of the snake in the grass. So I wrote on it “France.” I knew he expected to see the name of our airdrome on there, so after a cynical laugh he tried to look serious, although he well realized that he was being outmaneuvered.
“Oh, you know,” he explained, “you must make it more definite than that. Where are your friends? That would be the place to drop it.”
Whereupon I told him to write upon it “Paris.”
“Oh!” and he manifested complete surprise, “you have come from Paris?”
I laughingly told him that I had been there, and then he grew serious, but did not show any anger.
“Now really,” and he looked directly at Davis, as if to solicit some aid from him, “you should tell us your airdrome, for instance, which would be the best place to drop it.”
Davis told him that we really did not know the name of our airdrome, or its location. This was a good hunch, and backing Davis up with our mutual ignorance, I told him that if he dropped the message anywhere over the lines it would certainly be found, and while we, ourselves, were not very well known in France, having been there only a very short time, the American General Headquarters was well known and our names were on record at Headquarters. He was nonplussed, for his last card had been played and the location of our airdrome had not yet been divulged.
The Germans were, of course, anxious to find out the location of our airdrome for the reason that if by collaboration of information they found that several squadrons had been moved from other places to airdromes opposite their own front they would know that the forces were concentrating at a particular point and that something was likely to pop. Thus, it gave them the opportunity to distribute their own strength accordingly. He had failed on this, so he started out on new tasks.