How he drifted back into sea service again, I do not recall. In any event, he did and worked again as a ship’s boy, I suppose. Perhaps he was going home on leave. In any case, he was sitting on the “forrwarrd hatch,” eating an apple, and was just about to throw the core at a purser’s assistant when a torpedo struck the ship. It is one of the vain regrets of his life that he did not throw the core a moment sooner.
A few more days found him in a German prison camp where he soon became the chief entertainer of that hapless community. Not only did he hobnob with “Old Piff,” the German commandant, but his genius as a chef won him immediate recognition and prestige. Here it was that he enlivened the tedium of the prisoners by handing a bottle of ink to a German guard, who had demanded some insect dope, to rub on his face one sultry night, and the “guarrrd’s” face, according to Archer, presented a diverting sight next morning. He still has the cork of this ink bottle as a treasured memento or “souveneerrr.”
In the camp, to his great astonishment, he fell in with Tom Slade, who had also been gathered in with the survivors of a torpedoed transport, and the two, being kindred spirits and old friends (“comrades to the death,” Archer said), had contrived to escape together and make their way through Switzerland into France.
“Slady used to be a Boy Scout,” Archer told me, “and he knew all about trackin’ and trailin’, and a plaguey lot of otherr things besides. Only he’d never let you know he knew ’em. He knew about signalling and ’lectricity, and aerroplane engines—he had that old storrage warrehouse of a head of his filled up with all kinds of junk.”
“What did he look like when you knew him then?” I asked.
“Oh, he looked like he was mad—always sorrt o’ scowling. But he was trrue as the marrinerr’s compass—I’ll say that forr him.”
“And that’s saying a great deal,” said I. And this reminded me (I can’t say just why) to ask if Slade had been interested in any girl back in America.
“Gurrrl? Him?” Archer said. “He had no use forr gurrls, and nutherr have I. I’d rutherr have an apple any day. Gurrls make me sick.”
“Indeed,” I said. “I should think the apples you eat would make you sick.”
“Slady told me when we werre comin’ through the Black Forest that he neverr got no letterrs from gurrls. He said most soldierrs do, but he didn’t.”