Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ And all the rest of that night Tom Slade, whose 106hand had extinguished the guiding light, perhaps, to some lurking submarine; who had had to “think quick and all by himself,” and had decided for his Uncle Sam against his brother Bill, sat there upon the leather settee, feeling guilty and ashamed. He knew that he had done right, but his generous heart could not feel the black, shameless treason of his brother because his own smaller treason stood in the way. He could not see the full guilt of that wretched brother because he felt mean and contemptible himself. ”

“ He was thinking of something that Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said—that blood is thicker than water. As nearly as he could make out, that meant that after all a fellow’s own people came first—before anything else. He had great respect for Mr. Ellsworth.
The man in the sailor suit picked up the plate of food from the berth and slung the whole business into the basin. The jangle of the dish startled Tom and roused him. The others didn’t seem to mind it. They had more important things to think of than a mess plate.
And Tom Slade, captain’s mess boy and former scout, went on thinking. ”

“ During the search of the stateroom Tom stood silently by. He watched the coverings pulled ruthlessly from the berth, moved out of the way as the mattress was hauled to the floor, gazed fascinated at the quick thoroughness which mercilessly unfolded every innocent towel and scrutinized each joint and section of the life preserver, until presently the orderly little apartment was in a state of chaos. ”

“ Up and down the gang planks and back and forth upon the deck hurried men in blouses with great, clumsy wooden shoes upon their feet and now Tom saw the cause of that earsplitting clatter; and he knew that he had reached “over there.”
Down on the brick street below the ship, a multitude of children, all in wooden shoes, danced and clattered about, in honor of the ship’s arrival, and the windows were full of people waving the Stars and Stripes, calling “Vive l’Ameríque!” ”

“ He hoped those German prisoners who walked as if they were wound up with a key, noticed all this hurry and bustle. They would soon see what it meant for Uncle Sam.
There were voices outside and Tom’s heart beat like a hammer. Could it be over so soon? The door opened a little and he could see that someone was holding the knob, talking to a soldier. He breathed heavily, his fingers were cold, but he stood up and looked straight before him, bravely. They had come to get him.
Then the door opened wider and a familiar voice greeted him.
“H’lo, Tommy. Well, well! Adventures never cease, huh?” ”

“ The world isn’t big enough for some people. They’re born that way. I’m afraid you’re one of them. It’s surprising how unimportant money is in traveling if one has the wanderlust. It’ll be all right,” he concluded with a pleasant but kind of rueful smile. He understood Tom Slade thoroughly.
“That’s another thing I was thinking about, too,” said Tom. “Pretty soon I’ll be eighteen and then I want to enlist. If I enlist in this country I’ll have to spend a whole lot of time in camp, and maybe in the end I wouldn’t get sent to the firing line at all. There’s lots of ’em won’t even get across. ”

“ It was necessary, however, to watch for the sentry outside and here was where the team work came in. Archer spotted the gleam of his rifle at some distance up near the provision gate, and he scurried in that direction to hold him with his usual engaging banter, for even glowering “Fritzie” was not altogether proof against young Archer’s wiles and his extraordinary German.
Meanwhile, Tom, first looking in every direction, slipped under the bushes and felt carefully of the wiring. It was not simple flat fencing ranged in orderly strands, but somewhat like the entanglements before the trenches. ”

“ Truly, the soldier had hit the nail on the head when he said, “You’re all right, Whitey!”
And now, suspected, shamed, sworn at and denounced, even now, as his generous nature groped for some extenuation for this traitor whose scheme he had discovered and exposed, he found it comforting to lay the whole blame and responsibility upon the missing Adolf Schmitt.
“Anyway, he tempted you,” he said, though he knew his brother would neither listen nor respond. “Maybe you think I don’t know that. He’s worse than anybody—he is.” ”

“ Tom’s talk with Frenchy left him feeling very proud that he was American born. He had that advantage over the Frenchman, he thought, even though Frenchy had escaped through a pass in the Alsatian mountains and made such an adventurous flight.
When Frenchy had spoken of the American soldiers Tom felt especially proud. He was glad that all his people so far as he knew anything about them, were good out-and-out Yankees. Even his poor worthless father had been a great patriot, and played the Star-Spangled Banner on his old accordion when he ought to have been at work. ”

“ In the warmth of Frenchy’s generous admiration Tom opened up and said more than he had meant to say—more than he ever had said to anyone.
“So I got to be proud of it, anyway,” he said, in his honest, blunt fashion. “Maybe you won’t understand, but one thing makes me like to go away from Bridgeboro, kind of, is the way people say things about my folks. They don’t do it on purpose—mostly. But anyway, all the fathers of the fellows I know, they call them Mr. Blakeley and Mr. Harris, and like that. But they always called my father Bill Slade. I didn’t ever hear anybody call him Mister. ”

“ Far off, beyond 43the other great ships, a sprightly little destroyer cut a zigzag course, as if practicing. The sky was clear and blue. As Tom watched, a young fellow in a sailor’s suit hurried by, working his way among the throng of soldiers. Presently, Frenchy strolled past talking volubly to another soldier, and waving his cigarette gracefully in accompaniment. A naval quartermaster leaned against the rail, chatting with a red-faced man with spectacles—the chief engineer, Tom thought.
Who were Secret Service men and who were not? thought Tom. Who was a spy and who was not? ”

“ Once a scout, always a scout.
No one spoke to him all through the day—not even his brother. He heard the hurried comings and goings on the deck, the creaking of the big winches as bag after bag of wheat, bale after bale of cotton, was swung over and lowered upon the brick quay. The little French children who made the neighborhood a bedlam with their gibberish and the outlandish clatter of their wooden shoes; the women who sat in their windows watching these good things being unloaded, as Santa Claus might unload his pack in the bosom of some poor family ”

“ The only thing in the w’y is the mountains. Hi, Yankee! You see ’em? It’s the ole mountains out of the song.”
Tom looked at a distant range of blue-gray heights. Crossing those somewhere was the battle line—the long, sweeping line which began far off at the Belgian coast. How lonesome and romantic it must be for the soldiers up in those wild hills. Somewhere through there years ago Frenchy had fled from German tyranny and pursuit, away from his beloved ancestral home. Funny, thought Tom, that he should see both the eastern and western extremities of France without ever crossing it. ”

“ In the character and adventures of Roy Blakeley are typified the very essence of Boy life. He is a real boy, as real as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. He is the moving spirit of the troop of Scouts of which he is a member, and the average boy has to go only a little way in the first book before Roy is the best friend he ever had, and he is willing to part with his best treasure to get the next book in the series. ”

“ Tom said, laughing and dodging the Irishman’s uplifted hand; “but I say a person is American or else he isn’t. It don’t make any difference where he was born. If he’s an American citizen and he helps Germany, then he’s worse than a spy—he’s a traitor and he ought to get shot.” ”

“ Alsace will be France again! We go to win her back! Yess?”
“Yes,” said Tom. “I only meant you belonged to Germany because you couldn’t help it.”
“You are a lucky boy,” Frenchy said earnestly. “Zare is no—what you say?—Mix-up; Zhermany, France, America—no. You are all American!”
“I got to remember that,” said Tom simply. “I know some rich fellers home where I live. ”

“ But Tom Slade was only a humble Sherlock Nobody Holmes and he couldn’t get that phrase out of his head.
It’s the same idea as a periscope.
A periscope is a kind of a—a kind of a——
Tom’s brow was knit, just as when he used carefully and anxiously to move the grass away from an all but obliterated footprint, and his eyes were half closed and keen.
74“I know what it is,” he said to himself, suddenly. “It means how light can be passed through a room even while the room is dark all the time—kind of reflected—and you wouldn’t have to use any match.” ”

“ Trying desperately to master his feeling he broke down and big tears rolled down his cheeks. “I couldn’t help it,” he said to his brother. “It ain’t ’cause I don’t remember—but—I had to decide—and I got to stand by Uncle Sam!”
“If you didn’t know about this,” said the captain, watching him keenly, “how did you suspect it? You’d better try to control yourself and tell everything. This is a very serious matter.”
“You see that piece of cotton waste that you kicked?” said Tom, turning upon the disguised government agent. “You can see it’s fresh and hasn’t got any oil on it. ”

“ The iron ladder descended into a compartment where there was much electrical apparatus, innumerable switches, etc., and two steering gears. In front of each of these was a thing to look into, having much the appearance of a penny in the slot machine, in which one sees changing views. These he knew for the lower ends of the two periscopes. There was an odor in the place which made him think of a motorcycle.
A door in the middle of this apartment, forward, led into a tiny, immaculate galley, with utensils which fitted into each other for economy in space, like a camping outfit. ”

“ So the “chief engineer” proved to be none other than Archibald Archer—whose far-off home in the good old Catskills was almost within a stone’s throw of Temple Camp—Archibald Archer, steward’s boy on the poor old liner on which he had gotten Tom a job the year before. ”

“ I’m going to give you a little button, kind of, as you would say—to keep in your head. And this is it. Remember, there’s only one person in the world who can disgrace Tom Slade, and that is Tom Slade himself. ”

“ You can’t get your explosions right if there’s water. That’s why it starts first off and keeps going till the water works through. ’Tisn’t much of a crack, I guess. A file wouldn’t be any more use than a teaspoon.”
“A what? Believe me, I wouldn’t know a teaspoon if I saw one,” said Archer.
“If we had a wrench to get the cylinder head off,” said Tom, “I could show you.”
“It’s the end of that engine,” said Archer.
“Depends on how bad it is. If it’s only a little crack sometimes you can fix it with a chemical—sal ammoniac. ”