“As long as you’re going over there,” he said, rather hesitatingly, “maybe you’ll hear more about Tom—how he died, I mean.”
“France is a big place, Roy,” I warned him, “but if I can get any details be sure I’ll remember them to tell you; I’ll remember that I owe you a good turn,” I added.
Thus we parted. And I am afraid, as I said before, that I thought more about Roy on the way over than I did about his dead hero pal. As the great ship made her perilous way in silence and darkness through the danger zone, I thought of the trim figure which had waited for the evening papers at the station on that sorrowful day, of the service flag with its single star hanging in the window across the street, and of this same trim figure, with its brown face and clear eyes and curly hair, swinging its legs from the railing of my porch, waiting to do me a good turn.
I am afraid that I did not think so much about that lonely, rough-made grave in the little village of Pevy in devastated, bleeding France.
CHAPTER II
Tells how I chanced to learn something of Slade’s career and of the circumstance which was destined to send me out of France.
My own adventures as a correspondent on the west front would seem tame enough in comparison with the exploits which I purpose to relate, and I will not weary you with a rehearsal of my experiences and observations, especially since the account of these has appeared from day to day in two of our American newspapers.
I am afraid that amid the roar of battle and with the continual sight of death and bloodshed all about me I gave little thought to the young fellow from my home town in far-off America who had given his life for the great cause. What had seemed glorious and heroic in Bridgeboro was divested of much of its dramatic and noble quality by the sights which I beheld each day. I was present when Arliss, that daring young ace, fell to his death, and I knew, or at least I thought at the time, that no career could have been more adventurous than his and no death so splendid.
I did not, however, forget to make inquiries in responsible quarters about the death of Tom Slade and being for a time in the neighborhood of his final exploit, I was able to gather a few details which amplified and unquestionably confirmed the accounts of his career and death as published in America.
It was not until long afterward that I learned from a very responsible source how Slade had got into the Flying Corps, a matter which interested me greatly, since the last his friends in America had heard of him before the news of his death came, he had been in the Motorcycle Service. This and much other astonishing information I received during my journey in the Alps of which you shall hear the true account. I say true account because it has been published in connection with that frightful journey that I assisted a deserter, a report which has not one word of truth in it.