PART ONE—THE SECRET OF THE SCUPPERS
CHAPTER I
Tells briefly of the extraordinary episode which ended his service in the Flying Corps, and gives also a glimpse of his adventurous career.
The reports in the American newspapers of the loss of Tom Slade, aviator, were read by his many admirers and friends with a sense of shock and with feelings of personal bereavement.
Notwithstanding that his former comrades on this side of the water had not seen him for more than two years and knew that the character of his service, as well as his temperament, would be sure to take him where danger was greatest, the accounts of his dramatic end, set forth in cold type, seemed hardly believable.
It is the one familiar name in the casualty lists which brings the war home to one more forcibly than does the loss of a whole division.
But for all that, we received the news pretty calmly and made little fuss until after the great metropolitan dailies had mentioned poor Tom as a national hero. Then we sat up and took notice. When the Tribune phoned to our local Scout Council for a photograph of Tom (“any photo would do,” they said) our own Bulletin published an editorial which would have made poor Tom ashamed to walk down Main Street. And when the Times blazoned forth the heading,
JERSEY FLIER DIES A HERO
our Bulletin got another photo from Tom’s scout patrol and printed it on the front page. Then the Girls’ Patriotic League got hold of this picture and had it enlarged, and it was displayed for a week or more in the window of Blanchard’s Drug Store.
All we needed was a little nudge from New York and then we paid our tribute proudly and handsomely.