Five days later.
I did talk to Brian, Padre, and he said, better wait and give the letter
from Switzerland a fair chance to arrive, before telling Father Beckett
about Doctor Paul's messenger at Amiens.
Now I have had a letter, but not from Switzerland. I shall fold it up
between the pages of this book of my confessions. I believe you will
read it, Padre.
It came to-day. It explains itself. The envelope, postmarked Paris, was
addressed to me in typewriting. If Mother Beckett had not had a slight
relapse from working too hard in the den, I might perhaps have been gone
before the letter came. Then it would have had to be forwarded. It's
better that I stayed. You will see why. But--oh, Padre, Padre!
THE LETTER
"MISS O'MALLEY,
"Once I met a lady whose name, as I understood it, was not
unlike yours now, given me by Doctor Paul Herter. I cannot
think that you and she are one. That lady, I'd swear, would be
incapable of--let me say, placing herself in a false position.
"Though you will not recognize my handwriting, I've said
enough for you to guess that James Wyndham Beckett is your
correspondent. I have had the address typed because, for my
parents' sake and to spare them distress, it seems that you and I
must reach some understanding before I venture to let them
know that I'm alive.
"If you are worthy to be called 'friend' by such a man as Paul
Herter, you will wish to atone for certain conduct, by carrying
out the request I make now. I must trust you to do so. But
first let me relieve my mind of any fear for yourself. I have not
contradicted the story you told Herter about our engagement.
What I shall say to my parents when I meet them, as I hope soon
to do, depends upon circumstances. Till you and I have had a
private conversation, you will oblige me by letting things remain
as they are. I have strong reasons for this wish. One of
them--the only one I need explain now, is that it will seem
natural to them I should write to my fiancée--a young, strong
girl able to bear the shock of a great surprise--asking her to break
the news gently and tactfully to my father and mother. I do
ask you to do this. How to do it I must leave to you. But
when you've told my parents that I'm alive, that I've escaped,
that I'm in Paris with Herter, that as soon as my official business
of reporting myself is finished, I'll get leave, you may put into
their hands the following pages of this letter. They will not
think it strange that the girl I am engaged to should keep the
first part for her own eyes. Thus, without your being compromised,
they will learn my adventures without having to
wait until I come. But there's just room enough left on this
first sheet to reiterate that, when Herter found me, and gave
me the somewhat disconcerting news of my engagement to
his friend, a Miss O'Malley travelling with my parents, I--simply
listened. Rather than excite his suspicions I did not even
yield to curiosity, and try to draw out a description. I could
not be sure then that I should ever see you, or my people, for
escape was difficult and there were more chances against than
for my getting out of Germany alive. Now, in all human certainty
I shall arrive at the Château d'Andelle (I got the address
at the bank), and you owe it to me to remain on the spot till we
can thrash out our affair together. I will begin on a _new_ sheet
the story of the last few months since my capture. You must
forgive me if it bores you. In reality it is for my parents, when
you have prepared their minds, and I don't think it will bore
them....
"We came a bad cropper. I was thrown clear of the machine,
but knew nothing until I waked up, feeling like a bag of broken
bones. It was night, and I saw a huge fountain of red flame and
a lot of dark figures like silhouettes moving between it and me.
That brought me out of my stupor. I knew my plane must have
taken fire as it crashed down, and I was pretty sure the silhouettes
were Germans. I looked around for my observer, and
called to him in a low voice, hoping the Bosch wouldn't hear,
over the noise of the fire. Nobody answered. Later I found out
that the poor chap had been caught under the car. I pray he
died before the flames reached him!
"As I got my wits back, I planned to try and hide myself under
some bushes I could see not far off, till the coast was clear; but I
couldn't move. I seemed to be thoroughly smashed up, and
began to think it was the end of things _ici-bas_ for me. After
a while I must have fainted. By and by I had a dream of jolting
along through a blazing desert, on the back of a lame camel. It
was rather fierce, that jolting! It shook me out of my faint, and
when I opened my eyes it was to find myself on a stretcher
carried by fellows in German gray. They took me to a field
hospital, and I guessed by the look of things that it was close to
the first lines. It made me sick to think how near I must be to
our own front--yet so far!
"Well, I won't be long-winded about what happened next.
I can go into details when we meet. It turned out that I had
a leg, an arm, and some ribs smashed. The Bosch surgeon
wasn't half bad, as Bosches go, but he was a bit brusque. I
heard him say right out to the anæsthetist, it seemed a pity
to waste good ether on me, as there wasn't one chance in five
to save my life. Still, I'd be an experiment! Before I went
off under the stuff I told them who I was, for I'd heard they were
sometimes fairly decent to enemy aviators, and I hoped to get a
message through to my people. I was feeling as stupid as an
owl, but I did think I saw a change come over the men's faces
when they heard my name. Later, putting two and two together,
I concluded that Germany was just the kind of business
nation to know all about the dear old Governor. I might have
realized that, out of sheer spite against the United States for
bursting into the war, they'd enjoy letting a man of James Beckett
Senior's importance go on believing his son was dead. I bet
they put my name over the grave of my poor, burned pal, Hank
Lee! It would be the thoroughgoing sort of thing they do, when
they make up their minds to create an impression.
"I didn't die, though! Spite for spite, I got well. But it
took some time. One of my lungs had been damaged a bit
by a broken rib, and the doctors prescribed an open-air cure,
after I'd begun to crawl again. I was put with a lot of T. B.'s,
if you know what that means, in a camp hospital. Not far
off was a huge 'camouflaged' aerodrome and a village of hangars.
I heard that flying men were being trained there. I used to think
I'd give my head to get to the place, but I never hoped to do it--till
Herter came.
"Now I will tell you how he came--which I can freely do,
as we are both safe in Paris, having come from somewhere
near Compiègne. One of the first things Herter said about you
was that you must have guessed where he was going, and more
or less for what purpose. For that purpose he was the ideal
man: a Lorrainer of Germanized Lorraine; German his native
tongue--(though he hates it)--and clever as Machiavelli. He
"escaped" from France into Germany, told a tale about killing
a French sentry and creeping across No Man's Land at night, in
order to get to the German lines. It was a big risk, but Herter
is as brave and resourceful a man as I ever met. He got the
Bosches to believe that he was badly ill in Paris when the war
broke out and couldn't slip away, otherwise he'd have sprung to
do his loyal duty to the Fatherland. He persuaded them that
his lot being cast in France for the time, he'd resolved to serve
Germany by spying, until he could somehow bolt across the
frontier. He spun a specious tale about pretending to the French
to have French sympathies, and winning the confidence of
high-up men, by serving as a surgeon on several fronts. To
prove his German patriotism he had notes to show, realistically
made on thin silk paper, and hidden inside the lining of his
coat.
"Herter's mission in Boschland isn't my business or yours;
but I'm allowed to say that it was concerned with aeroplanes.
There was something he had to find out, and he _has_ found it
out, or he wouldn't be back on this side of the lines. Because he
hoped to be among German flying-men, he hinted to you that
he might be able to do you some service. It occurred to him
that he might learn where my grave was and let you know.
Nothing further was in his thoughts then--or until he happened
to draw out a piece of unexpected information in a roundabout
way.
"His trick of getting across to the flying-men was smart, like
all his tricks. The valuable (?) notes he'd brought into Germany
mostly concerned new French and American inventions in that
line. That was his 'speciality.' And when he had handed the
notes over with explanations, he continued his programme by
asking for a job as surgeon in a field hospital. (You see, he hoped
to get back to France before the worthlessness of his notes was
discovered.) When he'd proved his qualifications, he got his
job like a shot. They were only too glad of his services. Pretending
to have been in American training-camps, it was easy
to bring up my name in a casual way. Laughing that rather
sinister laugh of his, which you will remember, Herter told a
couple of flying chaps he had promised a girl to find Jim Beckett's
grave. One of the fellows laughed too, and made a remark
which set Herter thinking. Later, he was able to refer to
the subject again, and learned enough to suspect that there was
something fishy about the Bosch announcement of my death and
burial. He tells me that, at this point, he was able to send you a
verbal message by a consumptive prisoner about to be repatriated.
Whether you got that message or not who knows?
"His idea was to send another (in a way he won't explain
even to me) when he'd picked up further news. But as things
turned out, there was no time. Besides, it wasn't necessary.
It looked hopeful that we might be our own carrier pigeons, or
else--cease to exist.
"What happened was that Herter heard I was alive and in a
hospital not far behind the lines. Just at this time he had got
hold of the very secret he'd come to seek. The sooner he could
make a dash for home the better: but if possible, he wished to
take me with him. He had the impression that to do so would
please his friend Miss O'Malley! How it was to be worked he
didn't see until an odd sort of American bombing machine fell,
between an aerodrome it had attempted to destroy, and Herter's
hospital. They knew it was American, only because of its two
occupants, both killed. The machine was considerably smashed
up, but experts found traces of something amazingly novel, which
they couldn't understand. Herter was called to the scene, because
he had pretended to be up in the latest American flying
'stunts.' The minute he saw the wreckage an inspiration
jumped into his head.
"He confessed himself puzzled by the mysterious details,
thought them important, and said: 'It seems to me this
resembles the engine and wings of the James Beckett invention
I heard so much about. But I didn't know it was far enough
ahead yet to be in use. A pity the inventor was killed. He
might have come in handy.
"Well, they put those words in their pipes and smoked them--knowing,
of course, that I was very much alive and almost
within a stone's throw.
"I had always pretended not to understand German: thought
ignorance of the language might serve my plans some day or
other. The chap they sent to fetch me dropped a few words to a
doctor in my hearing. And so, though I wasn't told where I was
being taken or why I was to go, I'd about caught on to the fact
that I was supposed to have invented the plans for a new bombing
biplane. That made me wonder if a friend was at work under
the rose: and I was ready for anything when I got to the scene
of the smash.
"Fortunately, none of the Bosches on the spot could speak
English fluently, and I appeared more of a fool at French than
German. Herter--entirely trusted by his German pals--was
told off to talk English with me; and a flash of his eye said, _here_
was the friend! It was only a flash, and I couldn't be sure, but
it put me on the _qui vive_. I noticed that in asking me the
question he was told to ask, he emphasized certain words which
needed no emphasis, and spoke them slowly, with a look that
made me determine to fix each one in my mind. This I did, and
putting them together when I got the chance, I made out, 'I
want to get you home. Say you invented this model, and could
put the thing in working trim.'
"That was a big order! If I said it and could keep my word,
would it be a patriotic job to present the enemy with a
perfectly good machine, of a new make, in the place of a wreck they
didn't understand? This was my first thought. But the
second reminded me of a sentence I'd constructed with some of
the emphasized words; '_I want to get you home_.' How did he
expect to get me home--if not by air?
"With that I caught a glimpse of the plan, as one sometimes
catches sight of the earth through a break in massed
clouds when flying. If the man meant to help me, I would help
him. If he turned out a fraud, the Germans shouldn't profit
by his treachery I'd stop that game at the last moment, if I died
for it!
"You will know nothing about the new and curious bombing
biplane of super-speed invented by Leroy Harman of Galbraith,
Texas. But Father knows as much as any one not an expert in
aeronautics can know. When the Government wouldn't believe
in Harman, Father financed him by my advice. I left home for
France before the trial machine that was to convince officialdom
had come into being; and I didn't even know whether it had
made good. But the minute I saw what lay on the ground,
surrounded by a ring of Germans, I said to myself; 'Good old
Leroy!'
"I'd seen so much of his plans that they remained printed on
my brain, and I could--if I would--set that biplane on its wings
again almost as easily as if I _had_ invented it.
"Odd that the Bosches and I both trusted Herter, seeing he
must be false to one side or other! But he's that sort of man.
And I always take a tip from my own instinct before listening to
my reason. Maybe that's why I didn't do badly in my brief
career as a flier. Anyhow, I played up to Herter; and I got the
job of superintending the reconstruction of poor Harman's
damaged machine. It was a lovely job for a prisoner, though
they watched me as a German cat would watch an Allied mouse.
Herter was nearly always on the spot, however, for he'd made
himself responsible for me. Also, he'd offered to pump me about
what was best in the air world on my side of the water: how
many aeroplanes of different sorts America could turn out in
six months, etc. We contrived a cypher on diagrams I made.
It was a clever one, but the credit was Herter's.
"The Bosches were waiting impatiently for my work to be
done, in order to try out the machine, and if satisfactory, spawn
a brood of their own on the same model. I was equally impatient.
I hoped to fly off with the biplane before they had time
to copy it!
"A wounded Ace of theirs, Anton Hupfer, was for ever hanging
round. He was to take up the 'plane when it was ready.
But Herter industriously chummed with him, and not for nothing.
To Herter was due the 'discovery' of the inventor;
and as he boasted experience in flying, he asked the privilege
of being Hupfer's companion on the trial trip.
"The success of this trip would depend even more on the
machine's worth as a bomber than on her speed and climbing
qualities. It was, therefore, to be undertaken at night, with a
full complement of real bombs to drop upon headquarters at
Compiègne. Herter had suggested this. Daylight wouldn't
have suited for a start.
"An hour before the appointed time he dashed in upon Hupfer
to confide that a sudden suspicion concerning me was troubling
him. He had noticed a queer expression on my face as I gave
the engine a last look over! If I had done some obscure damage
to this so new type of machine, the mechanics might not detect
its nature. Herter didn't wish to harm me, if his suspicion
was unfounded, he explained, but he proposed a drastic proof
of my good faith. I was to be hauled out of bed, and hurried
without warning to look at the biplane in her hangar. The
mechanics were to be sent outside, there to wait for a signal to
open the doors: this to avoid gossip if I was honest after all.
Hupfer was to spring it on me that he'd decided to take me up
instead of Herter. My face was to be watched as this news was
flung at me. If I showed the slightest trace of uneasiness, it
would be a sign that I had played a trick and feared to fall its
victim. In that case the 'third degree' was to be applied until I
owned up, and could be haled away for punishment.
"There was just time to carry out this programme, and
Hupfer fell for it. Herter had put me wise beforehand, and
I knew what to expect. His real plan was to stand behind
Hupfer, the Bosch Ace, and bash him on the head with a
spanner, while his (Hupfer's) whole attention was fixed on
me. We would then undress the fellow. I would take his
clothes, and we'd put him into mine. Hupfer's body (stunned,
not dead, we hoped) we would lay behind a pile of petrol tins. I
acting as pilot, would trust to my disguise and the darkness of
night not to be spotted when the two mechanics threw open the
hangar doors.
"Everything happened as we'd arranged, without a hitch--again,
all credit to Herter! When we'd hidden the limp Ace,
trussed up in my prison rig, Herter yelled to the waiting men, in a
good imitation of Hupfer's voice. We ran smoothly out of the
hangar, and were given a fine send off. How soon the Bosches
found out how they'd been spoofed, I don't know. It couldn't
have been long though, as my prison guard was in attendance.
The great thing was, we went up in grand style. Otherwise--but
we needn't now think of the 'otherwise'!
"Our next danger lay in taking the wrong direction, getting
farther back in Boschland instead of over the frontier. I kept
my wits, fortunately, so that turned out all right. Still, there
remained the chance of being shot down by the French, and
blown with our own bombs into kingdom come. But, by good
luck it was a clear night. No excuse for getting lost! And
when I was sure we were well over the French lines, I planed
down to alight in a field.
"The alert was out for us, of course, and a fierce barrage put
up, but I flew high till I was ready for a dive. We'd hardly landed,
when the _poilus_ swarmed like bees, but that was what we
wanted. You must imagine the scene that followed, till I
can tell you by word of mouth!
"I shall have made my report, and have been given leave
to start for a visit to my family by to-morrow I hope.
"Yours till the end,
"JIM."
"Yours till the end!" Rather a smart, cynical way of winding up those
"exhibition pages" was it not, Padre? The secret translation of that
signature is: "Yours, you brute, till I can get rid of you with least
damage to my parents' susceptibilities!"
I shall obey, and wait for the interview. It's like waiting to be shot
at dawn!