, 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 Chateau 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