"And then, did our friend, the Hun, think so little of you that he set you free?" asked the officer, his eyes twinkling. "Hardly that, I am sure, my friend, for you look as though you could do some fighting."
Henri smiled back at him.
"No, Monsieur le Capitaine," he told him; "it was not because they wished to set me free that I am here, but because they couldn't help it. I escaped—I and two other comrades, one of whom was British."
"Ah! And you escaped—you and two comrades, one of whom was British; and because you wished—all of you, no doubt—to fight for your country?"
"That is so," Henri admitted at once. "We were eager to fight the Hun, and we have joined the French army at the first opportunity."
It was the same when the officer questioned Jules, and in a trice he realized that the two had made their escape from Ruhleben together.
"Tiens!" he cried; "one little moment. Two young Frenchmen who escaped from Germany and an Englishman with them—mais oui! but—vraiment! I have read this same story quite lately. Ah! I have it. You, then, are Henri and Jules for certain?"
The two young soldiers admitted the fact with rising colour, while the glances of every man in the squad were cast at them, and the Sergeant, that smart little fellow who had first dressed the line and adjusted every buckle and every accoutrement, turned a pair of admiring eyes on them. As for the officer, he gripped each one by the hand and shook it warmly.
"It's an example to us all, mes enfants," he told the squad. "There is great honour to our big friend here who has seen such fighting throughout the first days of the war, the Retreat, that Battle of the Marne where we smashed the crowing German, the conflict near Arras and round Ypres, which barred the progress of our enemy. To such a man there is undying honour. But here we have two who, though wretched, no doubt, while confined in a German prison, half-starved, by all accounts, bullied and browbeaten, could yet have remained in that camp safe from the danger of warfare. But they wished to help their country; and see them here, joining up with our forces at the very first moment. And so, Jules and Henri, you would wish to go to the front almost immediately?"
The two nodded their assent.