For your sake I laid a little wreath upon the grave and wrote on a piece of bark (which I think you told me is the Scouts’ writing material) that it was from the troop in Bridgeboro.
PART THREE—THE GRAY METEOR
I
Tells of certain perplexities which confronted me; also of how I journeyed into Switzerland and of how I first chanced to see the Gray Meteor.
The foregoing chapters which embody the story of Slade’s career, were, as I have said before, intended for the perusal of Roy Blakeley alone. They form, as you will have seen, a sort of story within a story. What went before, and what I am now about to write, would never have been written (much less published) save for the startling discoveries which I have recently made. As I feel now, I should like not only Roy Blakeley, but the whole world, to know the full truth of this strange business.
You will have noticed, no doubt, that in my somewhat rambling story of Slade’s career I refrained from mentioning the shocking revelations that were contained in the papers which I found in the Scuppers. To me (who did not know him), the death of the brave airman was not so much of a shock, but that he should have sold himself and his undoubted talents to the enemy while all the while keeping up the appearance of loyal service to the United States, was appalling—almost unbelievable. When and how, in those latter days of his brave career, he had played into their blood-guilty hands, I could not conjecture. But that is the wily genius of spies and traitors.
I tried to make allowance for him on the supposition that his mind had been polluted, his vision knocked askew, away back home by the disloyal German by whom he had been employed. I told myself that though he was brave, he was yet ignorant and weak, perhaps.
They had sent him into the enemy country partly because he had, in some measure, the German type of countenance and spoke German passably. Was there some obscure vein of German running in him, I asked myself. That might explain, though it would not excuse. He had spoken in blunt praise of his German captors and had come near to being court-martialled for it. Was that just common fairness to certain Germans in a particular instance? Or did it show the bent of his mind? It almost made me sick to think about it. And I felt guilty to be perpetuating his reckless courage for the benefit of the boy who had believed in him and still revered his memory.
It is enough for me to say now that I shall write the balance of this story with a clearer conscience.