"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.