"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 Compiegne. 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.
Pages:
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359