He was a little distance ahead of us, among the trees. A sergeant approached him to make a report. D'Artagnan leaned back grandly on one leg, his chest forward, his chin tilted up, his hand, as usual, twisting the mustachios.
"He loves it," I said. "He loves everything about it—this war. When peace comes his life will lose its savor."
My officer of the Great General Staff nodded; d'Artagnan returned jauntily, swinging his stick, and in ringing tones told us all that he had arranged for us to see.
We followed him through a program that has been described many times by correspondents since the war began—the encampments, the batteries and the trenches. But never before did a correspondent have such a guide. It was not my first trip to the front; but d'Artagnan led me into advanced trenches, closer to the Germans than I had ever been before. We crawled on hands and knees and spoke in whispers. But I was fascinated because d'Artagnan, just as Dumas might have shown him, crawled ahead, waved his hand in quick, impatient gestures for us to hurry, looked back to laugh and point through a loophole to great rents in the wire entanglements showing where a recent German attack had failed.
Only once, at a point where a road separated two trench sections, and always dangerous because of German snipers, did he order us to pass around behind in the safety of a boyau or communication trench. He leaped across the barrier with a derisive yell of triumph and a catlike quickness too astonishing to draw the German fire.
Otherwise he let us take far bigger chances than usually permitted visitors—and he made us like them. We squinted carelessly through risky loopholes because d'Artagnan did it first. We talked aloud because he did, and at times when ordinary guides would have made us keep silent. He stood up on a trench ledge and looked through a periscope, then jumped down laughing, holding out the periscope to show where a bullet had drilled a hole on the side only a few inches above his head. It was a game of follow the leader, and we followed because the leader was d'Artagnan.
"They will get him some day—he takes such chances," an officer remarked.
"They haven't got him yet and he has had more war than any of us," another replied.
On our way back, behind the line encampments, we met several soldiers carrying tureens of soup. D'Artagnan halted them, solemnly lifted the covers and tasted the contents. Then he passed the spoon to us.