A little searching led me to my sources on the drum matter in M10.
First, there is Clinton Carpenter, who wrote, concerning the drum stroke:
"To get a proper background for this music, one must go to Alma Mahler’s book Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters. Using the Basil Creighton translation of 1946, published by the Viking Press of New York, there appears on pages 122 and 123 an incident concerning a funeral. 'It was the funeral cortège of a fireman. . . . From our eleventh floor window, we could only guess what [the master of ceremonies] said. There was a brief pause and a roll of muffled drums, followed by a dead silence ... [Mahler’s] face was streaming with tears. The brief roll of the muffled drums impressed him so deeply that he used it in the Tenth Symphony.' . . . If the drum beats in the symphony are to echo this episode, then the tremendous whacks that are always heard are completely out of place. A drum stroke on a muffled drum eleven floors up doesn't sound as it does in the Morris record, or any other performance. . . . As indicated in Alma’s book, these beats should be felt rather than heard, which may be somewhat of a problem for the conductor. But even if they are only played softly, these places would be 100% better than at the present."
[From Naturlaut, The Quarterly Newsletter of The Chicago Mahlerites, Vol. 2, No. 4 (March 2004), emphasis mine.]
The fireman being mourned was Charles W. Kruger, Deputy Chief of the Fire Department of the City of New York, reportedly beloved by all who knew him. He had led his men into the basement of a burning building and had fallen into a pit filled with water; attempts to rescue him failed, and he slipped from their grasp with the words, "I'm going, boys!" This was reported in the New York newspapers, and the entire city mourned. [See Zoltan Roman, Gustav Mahler's American Years, 1907-1911: A Documentary History,, p.88; and Jerry Bruck's notes to the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra performance of M10, with CD issued by the Colorado MahlerFest.]
Robert Olson, writing in the booklet accompanying the Colorado MahlerFest recording of the Wheeler version of M10, reports that "[Jerry] Bruck queried the New York City fire department historian, who explained that it has long been the practice for such occasions to play a 'tattoo' on the muffled drum, i.e., a short roll. Heard at Mahler's upper-story window, this short roll could very well have sounded like one stroke. Furthermore, Mahler does not specify a dynamic marking for these strokes, only sforzando, so the various 'completors' have used their own judgements, and they are quite different." [Emphasis mine.]
Now, Barry, when you finish your version, how will you treat the drum strokes?
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