Captain Pfeiffer! Here was a good old German name for a loyal American captain—Pfeiffer! The least he could have done would have been to change it to Fifer. Well, he could kill the Germans with any name, but——
I scrutinized the memorandum a little more intently. List and supplies from Berry-au-Bac. Hmph! Why, Berry-au-Bac was fifteen or twenty miles within the German lines. At the time of Tom’s last service it must have been double that. What had Tom Slade to do with lists and supplies from Berry-au-Bac?
Why, of course, he had descended upon Berry-au-Bac and captured lists and— No, it was absurd.
Puzzled, I turned the scrap of paper over and found some reassurance in those cordial, friendly words written in the girl’s hand. No, sir, we do not turn out spies or traitors in Bridgeboro. How should I know what that memorandum meant? But if my name were Pfeiffer, I’d change it to Fifer or Fife, I knew that much. Tom Slade knew his business, I was sure of that.
So thinking, I unfolded the next paper and found that he knew his business only too well. Here was a rough map showing every last hospital and dressing station beyond the American lines in that sector.
Two were crossed off—blown up, I suppose. There were some twenty or more still to be blown up. Underneath were written these words, as nearly as I can remember them:
Report dressing station foot of Fav Hill joined to one on top—empty—don’t bother. Ask about supplies from Wangardt. Correct list sent to Cap. Dennheimer so I don’t get blame. Tell him G station on other list is full.
And so on, and so on—I could not read any more. The name of that unspeakable wretch, Dennheimer, was quite enough. His deeds of bestial inhumanity were such as to call down the vengeance of Heaven and damn him for all eternity. I knew that he had his minions peering out under their big gas bags and skulking about like the unclean bird I had been watching, putting the doom of certain death on those already wounded. I knew that, like that sinister, cowardly bird, he made it his special function to defile the blue sky, sending his sneaking minions of the air forth upon their barbarous errands. They did not fight, the gallant fliers of this command, they skulked and murdered and fled.
And here in my hands, incredible as it seemed, was the last damning memorial of one of them.
And an American!