Dennis Dashwood laughed aloud, but though there was genuine amusement in his voice at the beginning, it quickly tailed off into a broken quiver, for the lad was still suffering from the effect of the shell burst.

"You will laugh on the other side of your mouth directly, if I know anything," said his captor gravely.

"I am quite content to leave that to the judgment of your officer, my friend," replied Dennis in French. "But have the goodness not to shake me like a rat. I've got a splitting headache as it is."

"Ha, you spies speak all languages. Ma foi! What a lot of clever scoundrels you are!" grunted the Alsatian corporal. "What a pity, for you have not got a really bad face when one comes to look at it."

"Is it far to your headquarters?" inquired his prisoner wearily.

"Not far, so you had better make the most of it. It will be your last walk on earth. How beautiful is the song of the lark! The little animals do not seem to mind the gunfire at all. Do you have larks in Prussia?"

"I hope we shall, my corporal, when you and I get there with our battalions," but the corporal was impervious to the harmless jest, and squared his shoulders as they came in sight of his commander's post.

The other man whom Dennis had seen on the slope had come down and joined them, and the pair marched their prisoner in with a brisk, businesslike stride.

The French trench ended, or began, whichever way you like to take it, in a wood of oaks, and the smoke of many fires drifted among the tree-trunks. At the door of a dug-out a group of officers sat round a trestle table taking their coffee, and they all looked up as the corporal cried, "Halt, prisoner!" and saluted with his rifle.

"Mon Commandant, I found this man hiding by the roadside behind yonder. He speaks German and French and all the languages under the sun, and I am convinced he is a spy."

The commandant was a spare, black-bearded man, whose uniform of horizon blue gave one rather the impression that it had been made by a dressmaker, but on the left breast was a little strip of crimson and green ribbon, showing that he had won the Military Cross during the war. He had black leggings and narrow black belts, and the wristbands of his shirt were spotlessly clean.

"What have you to say for yourself, prisoner?" said the commandant, eyeing him keenly from top to toe, through the chalk and dirt that encrusted him, and Dennis in excellent French told him who he was.

"Where is the dispatch of which you speak?" was the next question, and Dennis pointed to his torn tunic. "It was destroyed when the car was blown up, Monsieur le Commandant," he replied.

"But you must still have some proofs of your identity. What is that in his pocket?" And the commandant, who had lit a cigarette, pointed with the match.

The corporal thrust his hand into the drab tunic and produced two things which he laid on the table by the long loaf from which the officers had cut slices to dip in their coffee.

"Ha!" said the commandant, opening the wallet. "You told me your name was Dashwood, but here it is given as Alfred Robinson."

"I brought that away from the body of the man who drove me," explained Dennis. "That is the English chauffeur's licence from Scotland Yard."

"And this?" continued the officer, his face becoming graver as he examined the German soldier's "small book." "Here you are described as Hans Schrettelmeyer, Private in the 24th Reserve Battalion of the 108th Saxons; how do you account for it?"

"That I picked up in the fire trench of my own battalion when we repulsed the attack last night," said Dennis, drawing himself up a little and colouring indignantly as he found his position becoming serious.

"Oh, come, you are evidently fond of picking things up, my friend," said the commandant with a dry smile. "Is there anything else that you have found that will help you?"

"I have my own identification disc," said the lad hotly, and then he bit his lips as he groped between his shirt and undervest.

"Unfortunately, monsieur, it has also gone!" he exclaimed, turning pale.

"Ah, well, I do not think we want it," said the commandant, tilting his chair backwards. "We have had several of your kind prowling about our lines lately—one only last night, and an example is necessary. You are a spy, my friend, and that is the end of the matter."

"Look here, sir, this is all bosh!" exclaimed Dennis hotly in his own language, realising for the first time that appearances were dead against him.

"Quite right, my boy," laughed one of the other officers in English. "You are all Boche. I think there is very little doubt about that."

The commandant leaned across the table and said something in a low voice to the others, and they all nodded.

"May I be permitted to make an observation, sir?" said the lad.

"With pleasure," replied the commandant, bowing politely.

"A very short question over your wire to Monsieur le GÉnÉral commanding this army corps will convince you that I am what I tell you I am," said Dennis.

"Even if I thought there were any necessity it would, unfortunately, be impossible," said the commandant in a cold voice. "Your wires are not the only ones that suffer, and ours has undergone some damage during the night. It may be two hours before it is repaired, and you must not be surprised if we make short shrift of you."

"But, monsieur!" expostulated Dennis. "This is an outrage! My country and yours are firm friends, and I repeat, upon my word of honour, that I am an Englishman."

The officer who had laughed at him and who spoke English, said in an undertone: "Do you know, monsieur le commandant, I should feel inclined—with all due respect I say it—to postpone the execution. I must confess this boy is a marvellous linguist, and there is not a trace of fear in his bearing."

"My dear Laval, for myself I am convinced, and I shall take all responsibility," replied the commandant. "Prisoner, if you would like to write a letter to your friends you are at liberty to do so. We will endeavour to forward it afterwards. Also, if you care to avail yourself of the good offices of our chaplain they are at your disposal. But do not waste time, for you will be shot in half an hour," and he made a grave inclination with his head to intimate that the interview was at an end.

A contemptuous smile passed across the young lieutenant's face, and he bowed in return.

"Very well, sir, I can only say that you will be sorry for this decision," he said. "I have a fountain pen—will somebody kindly lend me a sheet of paper?"

One of the officers at the table handed him a blank form, at the same time offering his cigarette-case.

"No, thanks, I won't smoke," said the boy, and, sitting down on a billet of wood, he laid the paper on his knee.

He got thus far, the Alsatian corporal standing rigidly at his elbow, when he became aware of a bustle at the table, and looked up.

A French liaison officer had just arrived, and was explaining his mission to the group, while the commandant read a dispatch he had brought.

Dennis sprang to his feet, and the laugh which brought the corporal's grip on to his collar again turned every eye towards him.

"Good morning, mon Capitaine!" he cried. "Will you be good enough to tell the commandant the circumstances under which we met last night, and why I came to your headquarters with a message?"

"My dear lieutenant," said the liaison officer. "Enchanted to meet you again! But what in the name of heaven has happened to you?"

"Nothing to what was going to happen in a few minutes if you had not arrived," replied Dennis, unable to repress the triumph he felt at the consternation in the faces of his judges.

"Ciel, mon Commandant!" exclaimed the liaison officer. "It is a very fortunate thing for you that I came in time. If you had shot this young Englishman, Father Joffre would have had something to say about it."

In a few words he established the prisoner's identity beyond any shadow of doubt, and the good-hearted fellows were round him in a moment, clamouring out their apologies, while the commandant, with tears rolling into his beard, kissed him on both cheeks.

Dennis was ashamed that he had called him a pork butcher, for the poor man was pathetically apologetic, and trembled like a leaf at the thought of what might have been.

"You certainly gave me a very tight squeeze for the moment," laughed the lad. "But it was a string of extraordinary coincidences that might have deceived anyone."

"Then our general's reply has not reached your headquarters?" queried the liaison officer.

"Unhappily not," said Dennis. "It is somewhere among the wreckage of the car and the remains of those two poor fellows."

"Never mind," said his preserver. "We will let you into a little secret. The dispatch you brought to us was a request that this division should join with your nearest brigades in a raid on the enemy's lines. The Allied artillery is even now lengthening its fuses, and we are on the point of giving the Germans a surprise. Will you find your way back, or——" And he made an expressive wave of his hand in the direction of the German trenches.

"If Monsieur le Commandant has no objection, and somebody will lend me a revolver, I should love to take part with the battalion that was going to shoot me," laughed the boy.

"Cher ami!" cried the black-bearded officer. "You heap the coals of fire upon my head. You and I will march together!"

While Dennis swallowed a cup of coffee the commandant dived into his dug-out and reappeared with a revolver case, which he buckled on the boy with his own hands; and meanwhile the little group at the wood fires had snatched up their rifles and donned their blue-painted steel helmets, and were falling in by companies, eager to exchange the monotony of trench warfare for a brisk dash at the hated foe.

The Alsatian corporal, a typical poilu, still kept very close to his late prisoner, but there was an altogether different look in his eyes now.

"I should never have forgiven myself, mon lieutenant," he blurted out, as he slung his rifle behind his back and festooned himself with racket bombs. "I hope monsieur will bear me no ill will for my stupidity."

"It is nothing, my friend," said Dennis laughing. "A brave man should do what he thinks to be his duty, and you did yours. What is the distance to the enemy trench?"

"About a hundred metres, mon lieutenant," replied the corporal, "and uphill all the way. VoilÀ! There goes the signal!"

A low blast on a whistle, and the long grey-blue line went quickly forward among the trees, and jumped down into the deep excavation which wound like a dirty white ribbon along the outskirts of the wood.

The 75's were barking loudly in their rear, the shells now falling behind the enemy trench, the sandbags of which showed in an irregular line on the slope against the sunrise.

The liaison officer had come with them thus far, and was looking at his watch.

"Bon chance, lieutenant," he said. "Unhappily, I may only see the attack launched, but I hope this will not be our last meeting."

"My boys, it is time!" cried the commandant. "En avant!" And, climbing swiftly over their parapet, the active little poilus scampered up the hill through the yellow charlock.

Half-way up every man flung himself flat upon his face, and looking back, Dennis saw the second line coming over to their support. Again the whistle sounded, the little blue figures jumped up, scurrying like rabbits, and the machine-guns on the German trench opened fire.

Down on their faces sank the first line again, so suddenly that an onlooker might have thought that everyone of them had been shot, and as Dennis found himself in a bed of stinging nettles close to the ruins of a cottage, with the corporal and the commandant on either side of him, he caught the distant sound of an English yell away to the left, and knew that the British raid had been well timed, and was acting in concert with his new friends.

For an instant the commandant, whistle in mouth, lifted his head and saw that his supports had come up to within twenty yards of their comrades.

"Now, my dear friend," he mumbled, giving Dennis's arm a warm squeeze. "One bound, and we shall be there!"

The whistle shrilled loudly, and, jumping to his feet, the commandant shouted, "Forward with the bayonet! Vive la patrie!"

Instantly the sandbags in front of them bristled with heads wearing flat caps, and the volley from the mausers mingled with the murderous tac-tac of machine-guns.It floated dimly through the boy's mind that he had no right to be hazarding life and limb in that place, but the joy of that mad rush with a fight at the end of it banished the thought on the spot, and, scarcely conscious of those few remaining yards which they traversed at top speed, he found himself scaling the sandbags.

Above him was the commandant, sword in one hand and revolver in the other, but as the active little man poised for an instant on the top of the parapet and fired into the trench at his feet, he threw up his arms and pitched backward, Dennis dropping his weapon to dangle at his wrist, and catching him as he fell at the foot of the obstacle.

"It is nothing," gasped the French officer, clutching at his throat, but the blood was pouring between the fingers of his hand.

"He is wrong," said Dennis, as the Alsatian corporal knelt beside him. "We must get him back under cover at once. It is only a surgeon who can stop this hÆmorrhage."

"And I haven't thrown a bomb yet!" growled the corporal, tossing the racket he held in his hand over the top of the sandbags.

Its explosion seemed to satisfy him for the moment, and passing his powerful arms under the commandant's shoulders, while Dennis lifted his legs, they walked carefully backwards down the slope again beneath a whistling hail of bullets.