FOREWORD
It is a fact that the career of Slade from the time he became an airman and even before was one of bravery and patriotism, and his disaffection, apparently, had come only at the very end of his service. Even then, as it seemed, he had not gone over to the enemy, but had accepted and carried out commissions from them while maintaining an appearance of loyalty. And I marvelled at the prowess and resource which he must have shown in this hazardous business. No one in all that sector, where he had come and gone as freely as the birds of the air, had suspected him; none spoke of him except in praise.
Perhaps the newspaper account which had thrilled us so at home was somewhat in the nature of a “write-up,” and there were, indeed, several versions current as to just how Slade had met his death. Most of these fell a little short in the ingredient of reckless valor, but there was no question that he had been counted a very daring airman, and I could multiply instances of praise and expressions of trust and confidence from his comrades and superiors.
I supposed at the time that money had tempted this brave young fellow to his moral fall. About all I had ever known of him was that he had been of a simple mind and very poor. This much I had learned from Roy.
Before I left the Scuppers that night I had a mental tussle over the question of what I should do with these incriminating papers. If Slade had been living I should have turned them over to the authorities, but as it was I could not see that anything was to be gained by their preservation. They pertained to conditions which no longer existed, they revealed no facts that were of value now, and I decided to destroy them then and there—all except the picture of the girl and the scrap of her letter containing the familiar references to Bridgeboro, for I could not bring myself to cast those into the flames. Her friendly, companionable words, though they were not addressed to me, comforted me, nevertheless, and conjured up thoughts of home. The brief memorandum on the back I obliterated with my pen. With the other papers I made a little fire in my cave, believing that I could the better fulfill my promise to Roy if I put, or tried to put, this horrible sequel of a brave career out of my mind altogether.
I shall ask you to do the same while I try to give you a sketch of Slade’s remarkable deeds up to the time he became a patient “recovering from a slight wound,” in the Epernay Hospital. This tale of his career is necessarily disjointed and fragmentary, and was intended only for the perusal of Roy. I began it in the form of letters to him while I was myself a patient in that same hospital. These letters were never sent because I feared the censor, who had been dealing rather freely with my newspaper stuff, and I soon fell into the habit of stringing out a more orderly narrative.
You will understand, of course, that my chief interest in all these matters was for Roy Blakeley. He was my hero.
As to who will prove the hero of this whole extraordinary business, that shall be for you to say.
LETTERS TO ROY BLAKELEY