It was empty, but a brazier was burning under a cooking-pot, and on one side of the wall of the unspeakably filthy place hung a row of uniforms.
"I shall never get out of it in these togs," he thought, looking ruefully at his own tattered rags; and with no very fixed idea of what to do or how to do it, he put on the first tunic he found, drew a pair of baggy slops over his own gaiters and breeches, and crammed a forage cap, with a red band and cockade, on to his head.
Something bulky in the pocket of the tunic attracted his attention. It was a book, half filled with German shorthand notes, and on the fly-leaf was inscribed the name—"Carl Heft, 307th Reserve Battalion."
Carl Heft was evidently a stenographer, and to the lad's horror he heard a harsh voice calling out the name.
"Great Scott! What have I done now?" he thought. And as a black-whiskered sergeant loomed in the doorway of the dug-out, he clicked his heels together in the approved German fashion, and stood stolidly to attention.
"What are you skulking here for, Heft?" demanded the sergeant angrily. "Come along, pig's head—the general wants you!"
Dennis stepped briskly forward without a word, fastening the last button on the soiled tunic as he reached the open air.
"They're either in a high state of nerves, or I must be something like the real Carl Heft," he thought. "Not very flattering to one's vanity, but it might be useful, who knows? What on earth is going to happen now? I'm perfectly certain to give the show away this time."
No one paid any attention to him as he passed the busy groups of men in the firing bays, for everyone was working feverishly to repair the damage of the British shells; and after some twists and turns, the sergeant vanished into a covered communication at the entrance to which was planted a pennant, whose horizontal stripes of black, red and white denoted the headquarters of a division.
Dennis could not restrain a smile of huge delight, for the flag told him that we must have penetrated a considerable distance into the enemy lines.