“You’re all right, Slady!” Archer exclaimed in admiration.
“It’s comin’ across the wind,” said Slade. “We’ve got to allow for that.” He screwed up his mouth sideways, Archer said, and looked for all the world like a “regularr old grandmotherr with his goggles up on his forrehead.”
“It’s all right,” he said finally, “we’re all right now if we can only get her out of here. These old Hun ice wagons weigh about a hundred tons. If we fly straight west we’ll strike Troyes in half an hour. Even if we don’t just strike it, we’ll see the glare and that’s all I care about. We can land in the school[[6]] just outside the town. They’ll have the four lights on account of a patrol being out, maybe. We’ll have to take our chances with the patrol. We can fly square and there won’t be any draft, that’s one good thing.”
I think you will see from his talk what he hoped to do. He knew that they were not far east of Troyes, the most considerable place between them and Paris. Here, undoubtedly, there would be communication with the metropolis. And he knew of a landing place there—the school with its corner lights. There were also anti-aircraft guns there, as he knew perfectly well, but he hoped to anticipate their shots. He knew he could fly directly west without much difficulty and that there was probably no place in this route with anti-aircraft equipment So far, so good. If they could only get started. But was he a little north or south of Troyes or directly east of it? If he flew due west would he come within the guiding radius of its glare? A mile or so north or south of the town would make no difference, so far as seeing its composite glare was concerned, but then he would have to take the wind in one quarter or another and run across it. And that he wished to avoid. Indeed, he might have avoided it, by going above the current, out of the wind and into the clouds. But how could he see the four guiding lights then?
In a word he wished to fly due west and hit his destination as a bullet hits its mark. Perhaps if he had been an experienced airman he would not have felt it needful to do this, especially since the weather was quieter. Perhaps he was a little unnerved by his experience so far. Be that as it might, one thing he knew from his knowledge of the roads and the country, gleaned when he was serving as messenger. He knew that Troyes was thirty or forty miles west of the hill town of Bar-sur-Aube, but a trifle north of it—about five miles, he thought. And he determined how far north he was from Bar-sur-Aube by the distant whistle of a locomotive. And the sequel proved, as you shall see, that his ear was tuned to the fraction of a mile.
I understand that in considering Slade’s rather irregular application for his brevet papers after this affair, it was submitted by an instructor lieutenant that he had accomplished his feat by a “trick of the scout rather than of the aviator.” Did you ever hear such nonsense? Indeed, if that is so, then all I have to say is, Three cheers for the Scouts!
But to return. Slade and Archer made half a dozen or so “flaming arrows,” as Archer called them, using the same idea that Slade had used for his missives. The principal one of these was that in which they used the nickel time-bar and on this they exerted special inventive effort Archer’s shirt was wound into a tight wad so as to hold the flames longer, and was put to soak in the replenished can of gasolene. To one end of the rod was fastened a note written by Slade, but composed by both. This momentous and very characteristic missive Archer thinks he can yet procure by reason of his “being in soft” with certain high Signal Corps officials. If he succeeds I will certainly bring it home to you. In any case, this is what it said:
Two Americans are up here in a Hun machine. Escaped in it from Azoudange prison. Have news and messages for transmission to Paris. Also Hun airman’s roller-map kept from damage. We want to make a landing so don’t shoot. If everything is all right give us plenty of lights and fire three shots. If any questions, fire shots in Morse Code. We’ll answer by dropping more notes. But hurry. This is written on American messenger’s dispatch blank. Also notice nickel rod is from distance type B American motorcycle.
Thomas Slade,
Signal Corps Messenger Service.