The next two days passed without incident and I was then taken to the Intelligence Department of the German Flying Corps, which was located about an hour from the hospital. There I was kept two days, during which time they put a thousand and one questions to me. While I was there I turned over to them the message I had written in the hospital and asked them to have one of their fliers drop it on our side of the line.
They asked me where I would like it dropped, thinking perhaps I would give my aerodrome away, but when I smiled and shook my head they did not insist upon an answer.
"I'll drop it over ——," declared one of them, naming my aerodrome, which revealed to me that their flying corps is as efficient as other branches of the service in the matter of obtaining valuable information.
And right here I want to say that the more I came to know of the enemy the more keenly I realized what a difficult task we're going to have to lick him. In all my subsequent experience the fact that there is a heap of fight left in the Huns still was thoroughly brought home to me. We shall win the war eventually, if we don't slow up too soon in the mistaken idea that the Huns are ready to lie down.
The flying officers who questioned me were extremely anxious to find out all they could about the part America is going to play in the war, but they evidently came to the conclusion that America hadn't taken me very deeply into her confidence, judging from the information they got, or failed to get, from me.
At any rate, they gave me up as a bad job and I was ordered to the officers' prison at Courtrai, Belgium.
[V
THE PRISON-CAMP AT COURTRAI]
From the Intelligence Department I was conveyed to the officers' prison-camp at Courtrai in an automobile. It was about an hour's ride. My escort was one of the most famous flyers in the world, barring none. He was later killed in action, but I was told by an English airman who witnessed his last combat that he fought a game battle and died a hero's death.