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 anaesthetist, 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 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 h