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. Voila! 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 haemorrhage."

"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.



CHAPTER VIII

In the Enemy Trenches

By great good fortune, when they reached the crumpled ruins of the cottage, they found two stretcher-bearers kneeling among the nettles, on the look-out for casualties. They had seen them coming, and the stretcher was already unrolled, and as they laid him upon it the wounded man motioned with his hand.

"Stand round me," he said in a husky whisper, speaking with difficulty. "Do not let them see who it is that is hit."

One of the brancardiers placed a pad under the commandant's ear, and passed a bandage round his neck.

"Tighter, tighter!" motioned the sufferer. "How is it going? For me, I do not mind if you pull my head off, provided we take the trench."

Dennis peeped through a crack in the wall and bent over him.

"The attack has been completely successful," he said. "The supports are swarming in now."

"Vive la patrie!" cried the wounded man, whose grey-blue tunic was stained crimson with his own blood. "I thank you from the bottom of my heart, lieutenant. Again you heap the coals of fire upon me."

Then he fainted.

"Come along, Alphonse," said one of the stretcher-bearers to his companion. "We must get him to the surgeon at once."

"And we," said the Alsatian corporal, touching Dennis on the arm. "Shall we return up yonder?"

The commandant's revolver lay among the nettles, Dennis picked it up, and the pair raced side by side again up the trampled slope.

Lithe and active as Dennis was, his new friend, loaded with his pack and hung about with bulging wallets and strings of racket bombs, was over the parapet before him, and the boy's after-recollection of the ten minutes that followed was a chaotic jumble of mad slaughter.

The French infantry were in terrible earnest, and out to kill. They had old scores to wipe off, and at the outset nothing could stay them.

Figures in blue grey and figures in greeny grey wrestled and fought in the drifting smoke, and what with the hideous gas helmets and their huge goggles, and the mediaeval-looking trench helmets, Dennis seemed to have suddenly found himself in the company of weird demons from some other world.

Men stabbed and hewed and hacked at each other. Others, gripped in tight embrace, were seen revolving in a species of grim waltz, until a chance bullet or a piece of shell ended the dance of death.

The wounded squeezed themselves against the boarded sides, the dead lay where they fell, and the living took no notice of either. If there was any shouting the guns drowned it, and the lust of slaughter was in every face.

"I do not think there will be any poison gas," shouted the Alsatian corporal, whose name was Aristide Puzzeau. "The wind is in the wrong quarter, but you never know what these Boches are up to."

He handed him a gas helmet, which he took from a dead comrade, and without waiting for any thanks, Corporal Puzzeau pursued his way.

Dug-out after dug-out he bombed, and when his supply was exhausted he unslung his rifle with its long, thin bayonet, Dennis following upon his heels.

The barrage fire, playing a couple of hundred yards in rear of the German parados, effectually kept the enemy's supports in check, and Dennis wisely possessed himself of a steel helmet, for the shrapnel had a habit of raining down on friend and foe alike, but after they had gone some distance in a northerly direction, they found that the enemy had recovered from the first surprise, and a strong counter-attack was forcing a company of poilus back.

At first it was difficult to find where the enemy sprang from, until Puzzeau located the mouth of a subterranean dug-out from which they poured in rushes, and, crouching down, he waited at one side of the opening like a terrier at a rat-hole, Dennis standing beside him with a revolver in his hand.

"Wait, do you hear that?" said Puzzeau. "There are plenty more of them inside," and they waited.

"Good morning, my pig!" said Puzzeau, lunging forward, and the sergeant reeled against the trench boards.

Almost before he could recover his weapon the opening was filled with a surge of men, and Dennis emptied a revolver into the middle of them.

"That is the style!" grunted the corporal approvingly, as a dull shout boomed from the dug-out and those behind paused. "If there were only half a dozen of us here now, or, better still, a bomb-thrower," and, lifting up his powerful voice, he bellowed to a man he knew: "Rabot, surely there are some bombs left?"

"That is all very well," replied Rabot. "I have been sent myself for reinforcements. Do you know every officer of our company is down, and the men are falling back?"

"There is something yonder that will serve our purpose," cried Dennis, pointing to an ugly grey muzzle behind an iron loophole on the parados.

It was almost opposite to the door of the dug-out, and before the Alsatian knew what he was doing, Dennis had scrambled up to the machine-gun emplacement and vanished. The next moment his head appeared round one side of it.

"Stand clear!" he yelled, waving with his arm, and vanished again.

"Who is that?" inquired Rabot. "He looks English and speaks French like Monsieur le President."

"You will hear him speak German out of that gun in a moment," laughed the corporal. "Voila! there she goes. And to think we were going to shoot that boy less than an hour ago!"

Dennis, who had qualified as a machine-gun officer, had indeed lighted upon a piece of great good fortune, for under the gun he found three Germans recently bayoneted and the cartridge-jacket in position. He had only to depress the muzzle to send a stream of bullets straight into the mouth of the dug-out.

The stream ceased in a moment, and they saw him beckoning to them.

"Look yonder!" he cried, as the corporal and Rabot joined him. "The rabbits will not bolt again if we can leave someone here, but the company is in difficulties, and we are wanted. Can you take charge, mon garcon? See, the mechanism is quite simple; it works like this," and he loosed half a dozen rounds by way of illustration.

"Stay here and do as the lieutenant has shown you if they show their noses again," said the corporal, and Rabot took his post at the machine-gun.

The French soldier is intelligent because he has imagination, and Rabot understood. Corporal Puzzeau understood also, and his eyes danced as Dennis bounded along the top of the parados towards the retreating company.

They were bunched up in the trench, and some of them were even scrambling out over the other side, when that slim brown figure in the uniform of their British Allies with one of their own helmets on his head, and the corporal behind him, appeared above them.

"Comrades of the 400th of the Line!" cried Dennis. "You are surely not going back to Paris? Berlin lies in this direction. Follow me, and I will show you the way."

"Vive la patrie!" bellowed Corporal Puzzeau, and the men who had recoiled, took up the shout and scaled the wall of the parados again.

A furious rat-tat-tat sounded a little way off, and Dennis heard Puzzeau laugh.

"It is only Rabot," he said. "He has learnt the trick already."

In a few minutes the ground behind the German trench was strewn with bodies in field grey, and it was with some difficulty that Dennis and the corporal could check the victorious company from penetrating into the zone of their own artillery barrage fire. As it was, a good many of the helmets were dented, and not a few of the poilus paid the toll of their own eagerness.

"Mon lieutenant, if I return to our own lines," said the Alsatian corporal, "the general shall hear of this thing you have done. In the name of my country I thank you," and he held out his hand.

Dennis shook it, and laughed. "There is nothing to make a fuss about, corporal," he said. "We've taken the trench, anyhow; and as I see our right brigade yonder, who seem to have been lucky also, I think I'll get along now and join them."

He was gone before Aristide Puzzeau could say any more, and after a quick sprint he came up with an English Fusilier battalion consolidating the position they had just secured.

"Hallo, Dashwood!" hailed a voice, as a very young officer with a very large eyeglass turned round and stared at him. "You look as though you've had a rough night of it. Where on earth have you sprung from?"

"I've been with the French for a spell," said Dennis, looking down ruefully at his tattered uniform. "Where shall I find my crush?"

"Good heavens! they're miles away," said his interrogator, who had been with Dennis in the same training corps. "Pretty good raid, what? What price Romford after this? Bet you a lemon squash your C.O. will reprimand you for appearing on parade improperly dressed."

"I'll chance that, Jimmy. So long, old man," and he threaded his way past the rear of the brigade, not without some good-humoured banter at his dishevelled appearance.

It was twelve o'clock in the day when, rather leg weary, he struck the nearest battalion of his own brigade, and arrived in time to find himself once more in the very thick of it.

During the fighting on their right General Dashwood's command had lain doggo, but word had just come that they, too, were now to make a surprise attack on the enemy's first line trench, and smoke bombs were already preparing the way for them.

"By Jove! Den. The governor's been tearing his hair about you!" was Bob's greeting as they met on the fire-step. "You look pretty well knocked. Better turn in, old man, for a spell."

"Turn in be hanged!" cried Dennis. "Here, Hawke, you've no business with three bags of bombs. Give one of them to me. I'm going to be in this."

He had scarcely fitted the leather strap to his shoulder when his brother, who had been looking at his watch for the last minute said: "Ready, boys! Get over!" And the Reedshires cleared the parapet with a low glad murmur.

Dennis had lost all count of time, and only knew that he had crossed the strip of "No Man's Land" with his platoon, somehow, and was bursting bombs mechanically along the German trench.

Turning round as he came to a narrow door on his left, he was surprised for the moment to find the French corporal no longer at his elbow, and his laugh of amusement as he entered alone sounded odd and hollow.

With abrupt suddenness he ran down a flight of thirty wooden steps leading from the end of a short passage into a large hall, lit by electric light.

The huge underground dug-out was empty, save for some wounded Germans in bunks, and with a glance at the pictures on the walls, and the piano on a platform, he ran towards another door at the far end.

"Great Scott! they've got a regular town here!" he exclaimed aloud, gazing at the floor of the inner dug-out, which was quite thirty feet below the level on which he stood. "More electric light, and cases of ammunition enough for an army corps!"

"Perhaps you would like to count them, Dashwood?" said a mocking voice behind him.

But before he could turn round a coward's blow flung him forward into space. The electric lights went out, and while he was still falling he heard the heavy slam of the shell-proof door boom out of the darkness above him.



CHAPTER IX

In the Sniper's Lair

"You hound!" shouted the lad, as with great presence of mind he held his right arm aloft with the last bomb tightly clutched in his fingers.

There was a moment of agonised suspense which seemed extraordinarily protracted, and then he alighted, unhurt, on a pile of blankets, the unexploded bomb still in his hand!

"Thank Heaven!" were his first words as he lay, his heart beating furiously and his overwrought frame quivering from the shock.

The atmosphere of the vault—for it was nothing less—was close and stuffy, and there was a greasy smell in the still air, emanating from some lubricant used to protect the stocks of spare rifles which he was presently to discover.

"By Jupiter! if this bomb had gone off down here there wouldn't be much of me left," he muttered, gathering himself up and remembering that he had placed a spare torch in one of his breast pockets.

He was thankful then that he had not had time to change his tattered tunic, and, drawing it out, he pressed the button and played the bright beam up and down the vault.

It was one of those marvellous underground constructions for which the Germans seem to have a positive genius. The chalk had been excavated for trench building, the walls were boarded, and square balks of timber supported the roof in a double row of pillars.

He could not count the cases of ammunition—there were so many—nor the stacks of rifles that were stored in the place, but he saw enough to convince him that he had made a very important haul, if only things were going well above ground.

The distance he had fallen surprised him when he mounted the steps, but the steel door resisted all his efforts to open it, and though he thundered with his fists, there was no response from the other side.

"I've got to get out of this somehow," he thought, and, descending to the floor again, he made a minute inspection of the vast dug-out without finding any means of egress, until he came to an open case of rifle ammunition, from which several packets of cartridges had been removed.

As he read the description printed on the others he felt cold air blowing on him from somewhere not far away. At first he thought there must be some hidden ventilation shaft, but the draught was low down and fluttered the tatters of his abbreviated tunic.

"It's a jolly odd thing," he murmured, turning his light in the direction of the current. "Surely there is not another dug-out below this one?"

He passed round the angle of some piled-up boxes stamped with strange hieroglyphics, and then he stood still, for there was another door, the entrance to a gallery, as he saw in a moment.

But this time it led upward in a rather steep slope, and the floor was marked with the print of heavy boots, showing that the passage had been well used.

"I suppose it would take a month of Sundays to come across some revolver ammunition, and then the chances are it wouldn't fit these French chambers," he thought, examining the commandant's second revolver, which had only one charge left. "Anyway, I must find where this leads to." And, veiling the light with his fingers, he entered the gallery.

The sides had been roughly smoothed and faced by the pioneers' shovels, and he shivered involuntarily, for it was cold.

Making no noise, he crept for some distance in a straight line, until he came to a right-angle bend in the gallery, which he followed for sixty or seventy yards, and then switched off his torch as a loud explosion, not far ahead, seemed to drive the air against his cheeks, followed by the acrid odour of a German cartridge.

For an instant he believed himself to have penetrated an enemy sap, but now he knew that somewhere close in front lurked a German sniper!

Dennis Dashwood dropped on to one knee and peered along the passage. A faint light filtered through the darkness and a voice boomed dully.

"That is my first miss to-day," came the words in German. "This wind has given me a bloodshot eye, and I am shivering. Will you go back and bring me a couple of bottles of wine, Joachim?"

"With pleasure, Kamerad," said another voice, and the light was blotted out as a figure rose from the ground where he had been sitting on his heels. Dennis made out the outline of the sniper stretched at full length on a blanket, his rifle in front of him on a wooden stand, but it was too far to get back unseen, for the man was slouching heavily towards him, and in another moment discovery would be inevitable.

Dennis raised his right arm and fired his last cartridge, and the messenger fell forward, dead as a herring.

With a startled shout of surprise the sniper faced about, but Dennis was upon him, and, locked in a terrible embrace, the pair fell with a crash on to the chalky floor.

All fatigue seemed to vanish from the boy's limbs as he and his opponent rolled over and over, and he strained every nerve in a struggle which he knew could have only one end.

For a whole minute the narrow passage was filled with the sound as of a terrific dog fight, for Dennis had managed to get his head well fixed under the sniper's jaw, effectually preventing any words leaving his lips. Instead there came a stream of weird snarls and hisses and spluttering coughs, accompanied by the savage kicking of heavy boots against the walls of the gallery.

Their arms were round each other, and they struck out with their knees, but the thin muscular frame proved more than a match for the stouter man, and at last, pinning him down in a corner, where he panted quite out of breath, Dennis withdrew his head, and they looked into each other's faces by the light that filtered in again through a crevice at the end of the tunnel.

"You'd better surrender without any more fuss," said Dennis. "Perhaps you don't know that we've taken your first line trench. Otherwise I shouldn't be here."

"You are a liar," was the polite reply. "All Englishmen are liars."

"Have it your own way," said Dennis with a superior smile, as he began to get his own breathing under control. "Judging from your official statements, and your Bethmann-Hollweg, Germany hasn't much reputation for truth-telling! So you are the beast we've been trying to locate, are you?"

The man had a red moustache, the ends of which lifted as he smiled.

"Yes, I am the beast; the 'great blonde beast' your papers are so fond of talking about," he said ironically. "I've been here for a month, and I have shot on an average twenty of your fools every day."

"Well, you'll shoot no more," said Dennis grimly.

"That we shall see," retorted the man, suddenly stiffening his spine and almost succeeding in reaching a sitting position.

Up went the lad's arm and down came his clenched fist full on the bridge of the German's nose, dropping him back again. He had slid the French officer's empty revolver into its case, and as the man blinked at him with the water in his eyes from the force of the blow, Dennis drew it and clapped the cold muzzle to his ear.

"Now will you surrender?" he said, and he saw a wave of terror pass over the German's face.

"Yes, yes—don't shoot. I will surrender!" he cried, but as he spoke the beam of daylight was eclipsed, and Dennis looked up.

It was an artfully contrived place, for the tunnel ended against a little scarp of chalk, through which a crescent-shaped hole had been cut, commanding a wide view of the English trench and looking from the outside like an innocent, natural crevice. Immediately behind it was a steel grating, firmly embedded in the sides of the tunnel, and on one of the bars the muzzle of the sniper's rifle was laid, its stock resting on an ingenious wooden fork, which could be raised or lowered by a rack and pinion.

Through the crescent-shaped opening a human face looked in, and a voice, which Dennis instantly recognised, gave warning of more trouble.

"What-oh, Fritz!" said Harry Hawke. "You shouldn't speak so loud. As you can't come art and I can't come in, 'ere's a little present for yer." And he stepped back with a loud chuckle.

"Hold on, Hawke, you ass!" shouted Dennis at the top of his voice, but he was too late. Harry Hawke had already drawn the pin and lobbed a hand grenade neatly through the crevice.

Dennis knew that there were less than five seconds between him and eternity, but bracing his foot against the side of the tunnel, he suddenly wrenched the German sniper on top of him and lay there.

"Ach, I have you now!" laughed the man triumphantly, but his words were drowned by the explosion, and as the end of the passage was blown into the open air, the steel grating with it, Dennis felt the man he clutched grow strangely limp in his hands, and his own face bathed as with a hot rain.

"That's the way to do 'em in, Tiddler. What-oh, it's put the tin hat on one of 'em, and not 'arf, it 'asn't!"

"Yes, you confounded jackass; and it's nearly put the tin hat on me!" exclaimed Dennis, rolling the thing which had once been a man to one side with a shudder.

Harry Hawke's face was a picture. Consternation at what might have happened, and a huge joy that it had not happened, struggled for mastery, and between the two the game little Cockney broke down and sobbed like a child.

"Why didn't yer sing out, sir?" he wailed.

"I did sing out, my boy, but you sang in! However, never mind. How is it going?" said Dennis, squeezing the disconsolate one's shoulder.

"We've got the trench, sir," said Tiddler, whose face was as white as Hawke's under the dirt that grimed it. "Our chaps are consolidating the position now."

"Then one of you go and bring my brother here," said Dennis. "You go, Tiddler; and Hawke, come with me."

A great rent had been torn in the mouth of the sniper's gallery, and the sniper himself was not good to look upon, every rag of clothing having been stripped from his back and lower limbs by the bomb, while a couple of yards farther on lay the man whom Dennis had shot.

Picking his way past them, Dennis flashed his torch on again, and, followed by Hawke, made his way back into that underground storehouse, which had so nearly been his grave.

As he entered it he gave a prodigious yawn, and felt an indescribable lassitude creep over him.

"I'm frightfully tired, Hawke. I've been through a lot since we crawled over to their wire last night, and I'm hanged if I can keep up much longer. You see those steps? A spy fellow pitched me down them neck and crop. I fell just here, with a bomb in my hand too!"

"Lumme!" ejaculated his listener, as Dennis sat down heavily on the pile of blankets, just as the shell-proof door above them was opened from the other side.

Lights flashed into the lower vaults, and several officers chorused their surprise, among them Captain Bob. Tiddler had not yet reached him, and Bob was searching anxiously for some trace of his brother.

"My hat!" he cried. "We've touched lucky to-day, but Dennis can't possibly be down there. I'll go back and question No. 2 Platoon; he may have gone to the right."

"Arf a mo', sir!" sang out Harry Hawke. "'E is 'ere right enough, and bust me if he ain't snorin' already!"

Hawke, looking up the steps, saw the group part and General Dashwood himself come quickly down the ladder, and the store of shot and shell and the piles of rifles were as nothing to the brigadier as he saw the boy he thought he had lost for ever lying on the blanket pile, sleeping the sleep of physical exhaustion.

"That blood's nothing, sir," explained the delighted private, coming to attention. "It ain't 'is own. I can show you the man wot that come art of. 'E was that sniper we never could spot, and I reckon it was 'arf me and 'arf Mr. Dashwood wot killed him." And he gave his listeners a brief outline of what had happened, as Dennis had told him on their way there from the tunnel.

"And I sent him out of harm's way, as I thought!" was the brigadier's inaudible whisper under his moustache, and then aloud he said: "Get four men and carry him back to his own dug-out. It will do him good to sleep the clock round, and he will do it better there."

So, oblivious of the jolting, Dennis Dashwood was borne across what had lately been No Man's Land, and was now ours, and tucked up tenderly in his bunk, where, if he did not exactly sleep the clock round, he certainly did not open an eyelid until sunrise next morning.



CHAPTER X

In which Dennis Meets Claude Laval, Pilote Aviateur

When Dennis awoke he saw Captain Bob looking at him, and he became conscious of a very pleasant odour of coffee permeating the dug-out.

"Oh, I say, why didn't you turn me out before, old chap?" Dennis cried. "I shall be late for the blooming inspection."

"Never mind about that," laughed his brother. "And it's no use looking about for your duds; we've moved into new quarters over yonder, and all our clobber's gone across, but I've had some breakfast brought in here for you, so peg in, and tell me the whole story. There are some funny yarns knocking about, and I left the governor doing a sort of war dance. He only left out the whoop from deference to the B.M.'s feelings. But all joking apart, old chap, the pater's in the very seventh heaven of delight, for a letter has come from some wounded French officer who has recommended you for the Military Medal."

Dennis sprang out of his bunk, fresh as paint, and flung himself on the coffee and bacon ravenously, and while he ate he talked in his simple boyish way, making light of his own share in the story, and Captain Bob, filling in the gaps for himself, beamed like the rising sun which flung a rosy glow into that dismal mud-hole.

"By Jove! old chap, I congratulate you heartily," he said, grasping his brother by both shoulders. "If you go on like this you'll either go far, or you'll be very suddenly nipped in the bud. You mustn't take too many chances, Dennis, for the sake of the little mater at home. But this is good news!"

"Some have greatness thrust upon them, and I've had the luck to be one of those," said Dennis, looking rather ashamed of himself. "I did nothing at all, old man, that you wouldn't have done, or any of our crush. It just happened to come my way, and it just happened to come out all right, but I don't know which was the worst—that ride with poor old Thompson and that shell that blew us to smithereens, or Hawke's bomb. They were tight places, both of them! And, I say, Bob, I'll swear on oath it was Van Drissel or Von Dussel, or whatever he calls himself, who pitched me down that ladder. I recognised his voice distinctly."

"I should like to recognise his ugly mug," said the captain. "But he must have gone under, for he certainly wasn't among the prisoners. I saw them all."

"Well, Bob, I'd rather have a wash now than the Victoria Cross itself, and I must get into another tunic. Where's our new Little Grey Home on the western front?"

"Come on," said his brother. "I'll show you."

The Germans had sunk a well deep down through the chalk, and there was a stand-pipe close to the Dashwoods' new quarters.

Dennis stripped himself to the buff, and sallying out to the pipe, enjoyed the unexpected luxury of a glorious shower-bath, which he wanted badly. Then he dressed himself, appropriating the belts and equipment of a poor youngster named Binks, who had been killed during the raid, and, emerging from the door, almost ran into the arms of his father and the Divisional General.

"You are the very man I have been looking for," said the general. "Let me give you my heartiest congratulations, Mr. Dashwood. I have been in communication this morning with the G.O.C., and I think there's another slice of good luck coming your way. I wish I'd paid as much attention to languages when I was your age."

For a moment Dennis failed to grasp the drift of his words, but the Divisional Commander soon made himself quite clear.

"I had no sooner telegraphed a report of your doings from the commandant of the 400th Regiment of the Line than a wire came back from Sir Douglas Haig, who wants an intelligent officer with a fluent knowledge of French, and he asked me if I thought you would fill the bill. I at once answered in the affirmative, and you will go back with me in my car on your way to Sir Douglas, and it may be a very good thing for you."

Dennis glanced at his father, and saw approval in his face, and after a brief consultation between the generals about the consolidation of the ground we had gained, Dennis found himself whirling along the familiar road that he had traversed on the motorcycle two evenings before.

"I hope I shall be back in time for the big push, sir," he said, as the car pulled up in front of D.H.Q., and the general smiled.

"You must leave that to circumstances," he replied. "I'm afraid the 'big push,' as you call it, is becoming too much public property." And he turned to an officer who was just mounting a motorcycle.

"One moment, Spencer," he called. "You going to Sir Douglas? Ah, yes, I remember. Will you give Mr. Dashwood a lift and take him with you?"

There was a blanket strapped on the carrier, and away they whizzed, the continued thunder of the guns making conversation difficult, and the Allied aircraft circling high above their heads.

League after league they passed through a vast camp of armed men; brown battalions marching up to the front singing as they marched, brigades under canvas to right and left of them, miles of supply columns, some cavalry eating their hearts out, kite balloon sections 'phoning results to hidden batteries, all the seething mass of military activities to be found behind the firing line.

And then his companion slowed down as they approached the quiet chateau, where worked the keen, well-balanced brain that guided and controlled all those activities, and Dennis found himself in the presence of Sir Douglas Haig, who, after an interview of half an hour's duration, summed up the result of it in a few brief soldierly words.

"You are the very man I was wanting, Mr. Dashwood," he said pleasantly. "Your one object in life now is to find General Joffre, lay these papers before him, and explain any point upon which the French Generalissimo may be doubtful. Exactly where he is you will have to discover, but if you are fortunate you should be back here again before the end of the week."

"I hope to return well before that, sir!" said Dennis, and Sir Douglas smiled.

"I know what is in your mind, Mr. Dashwood, but that will rest entirely with yourself," said the Commander-in-Chief. "So far, from what I am told, you seem to have surprisingly good luck. Good-bye, the car is ready for you now."

The frank, handsome face of the distinguished cavalry soldier was still before Dennis's eyes as the little six-cylinder motor, with the small Union Jack fluttering from one of the lamp brackets, whirled him away on a long journey and an important errand.

His driver was a young Frenchman, who enjoyed that mad dash every whit as much as the English lad.

At Soissons they were told that the Generalissimo had left for Chalons that morning, and at Chalons opinions were divided as to whether he would be found at Reims, or Bar-le-Duc, which were in opposite directions.

"Which shall we try?" said the driver. "Reims means going back."

"Then get ahead," decided Dennis. "We can always return." And opening out the magnificent little car, they tore along the white ribbon of road at terrific speed.

"Peste!" cried an officer to whom they made known the object of their search when they reached Bar. "Only one hour ago Father Joffre passed through here. How unfortunate! But I can tell you where you will find him. He has gone to Saint Die to present medals to a battalion of the 'Little Blue Devils' at that place. Lose no time, and you may assist at the very interesting ceremony."

"Allons!" said the chauffeur, using the stump of his nineteenth cigarette to light the twentieth. "If we finish up on two wheels we will reach him." And reach him they did in a small village half a dozen leagues farther on, where they pulled up, white with dust from head to foot, after a fine run.

The well-known figure of the famous general paced backwards and forwards under the shade of a row of lime trees, in earnest conversation with another officer with three silver stars on his cuffs, and Dennis paused a moment as he got out of the car.

"I am going to put on two fresh front tyres," said his driver. "But I shall be ready in half an hour, and if you are going back we have still two hours of daylight left."

Dennis nodded, and stepped forward, saluting as the two generals turned towards him, and a genial smile widened Father Joffre's good-humoured visage.

"At your service, monsieur," he said, unable to distinguish the officer's rank for the white chalk dust that hid his solitary star.

"I have come straight from Sir Douglas Haig, mon General," said Dennis, presenting his dispatches, which General Joffre instantly opened and perused intently.

"There are matters here," he said to his companion, "which will require some consideration. You are the Lieutenant Dashwood whom Sir Douglas mentions?" And he turned to Dennis: "I am going forward now, but I shall be back in this place at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Our officers here will amuse you, mon lieutenant, in the meantime, and find you a bed. I am greatly indebted to you for the rapidity with which you have carried this most important document." And he walked quickly to the powerful car which was waiting by the side of the road. He was gone in a moment in a whirl of dust, the dispatch still in his hand, and the young Frenchman followed the general's automobile with an envious look in his eyes.

"That is a beauty," he said. "One could get seventy or eighty miles an hour out of her. But here comes an interesting personality, monsieur. This man who is approaching is Claude Laval, one of our most famous aviators, who has brought down sixteen German machines already, and killed fifteen enemy pilots. Something has vexed him too. He looks like a bear with a sore ear."

A tall man approached, clad in leather flying costume, with a close-fitting helmet on his head, and his thin, good-looking face bore an expression of extreme annoyance.

"Ah, Martique, my friend, is that you?" he said, nodding curtly to the chauffeur. "It is easy to see you have come from the other end of everywhere. I suppose it is not possible that you have any news of my brother?"

"If monsieur's brother is the Capitaine Felix Laval, officier de liaison, with the —th Division, I can give you some news of him," said Dennis, who had been struck by the strong resemblance between the aviator and the man who had saved his own life.

"It is the same," said the aviator, all trace of ill-humour vanishing as they shook hands. "Well, well," he continued after Dennis had told him of his adventure and how he came to be acquainted with his brother. "Yon will dine with me, and, ma foi, I want a good comrade to put me in a better temper."

"Might I inquire what it is that troubles you?" said Dennis, as they walked towards the door of a little restaurant with green-painted chairs and tables outside it.

"Oh, it is too bad!" exclaimed his new acquaintance with a despairing shrug of his shoulders. "I brought down a German Aviatik this afternoon, and by the greatest good luck in the world it is absolutely unhurt. To-night I had planned a little expedition across into the enemy's country, a friendly visit to a Zeppelin shed, whose existence none of our fellows are aware of. I have overhauled the engines myself; I have got ten beautiful bombs all ready, and now my observer has broken his arm, and I cannot find anyone to assist me."

Dennis looked at him with a pair of twinkling eyes.

"Could you be certain of returning to this village by eight o'clock in the morning?" he said eagerly, "for I am to meet General Joffre here at that hour. I hold an English pilot's certificate from the Hendon school."

"Embrassons nous! (let us embrace), my dear friend!" exclaimed Claude Laval. "I am now the happiest man in all France. Listen! The machine is at the edge of the wood not a kilometre from this spot, and the Zeppelin hangar is in the centre of the Black Forest. Come, let us eat something and drink a bottle of the good red wine. We will give the Boche a fine surprise, and I swear to bring you back in plenty of time for Father Joffre in the morning. Martique, remember, not a word to a living soul, and come you to the cafe with us; you can attend to that sewing-machine of yours after monsieur and I have gone on our little trip."

They dined in the open air, and the meal was a joyous one, Lieutenant Claude Laval keeping a keen eye on the sinking sun at the same time.

* * * * *

As the red rim dipped into the jagged line of dark poplars on a low ridge to westward Laval called for the bill, lit his pipe, and rose with an air of supreme indifference for the benefit of the groups of other officers at the adjoining tables, but his eyes spoke to Dennis as they walked away into the shadow of the trees.

"Now, lieutenant," he said, with a fierce thrill of exultation in his voice, "you know, of course, that old scoundrel, Count Zeppelin, stole the idea of his invention during the war of '70. We will see if we can't get a little of our own back to-night!"



CHAPTER XI

A Daring Dash

As they left the village the two companions, who seemed quite old friends already, quickened their pace to a run.

"My observer is in there," said the French pilote aviateur, pointing to an isolated cottage as they passed it. "It would be cruel to tell him that I have already found a fresh comrade. The good news shall keep until we return. And now, cher ami, we have no time to lose, as we have only something like four hours of darkness before us, and we must be well on the way back when daylight breaks."

"How far is it to the Zeppelin den?" inquired Dennis, as they turned aside through a cornfield.

"About two hundred kilometres," replied the pilot. "A trifle more than a hundred of your English miles. Voila, there she lies—a brand-new Aviatik, and that is my machine over there."

"How did you succeed in bringing the German down without injury?" asked Dennis, as they reached the biplane, which loomed large and weird in the twilight.

"More by good fortune than anything else," said Lieutenant Laval modestly. "You see, first of all I killed his observer with a lucky shot from my mitrailleuse and wounded the pilot himself. It was death or capture for him—it proved to be both. My machine—a Voisin—was one of the best, and, finding it impossible to escape, the Hun certainly made a very fine descent. He must have died at the moment the 'plane came to ground. And that reminds me—our success will depend on our masquerading as Germans, and we must use their clothing; they are both here."

There was a tinge of gravity in his voice as he led the way to some bushes a few yards off, where, stretched out side by side, lay two dead men with a mackintosh spread over them.

"They were brave, although they were Boches," said Laval. "And you will see that one of them is wearing an Iron Cross; I have not disturbed it."

In a few minutes they had removed the leather jackets lined with sheepskin from the two aviators.

"Henceforward we had better speak entirely in German, you and I; it will be good practice in case we require to use it," said Laval. And when they had equipped themselves they climbed up, and the Frenchman explained the compressed-air starting-gear and the various methods of control to Dennis.

"You must know these things," he said, with a smile, "so that you can take charge if anything happens to me; but these are first-rate machines, and with their dual ignition and the two separate carburettors they tell me there is very little engine trouble with them. However, my friend, we are about to see what we are about to see."

He glanced at his watch in the rapidly fading light.

"For some reason observer and pilot sit back to back," said Laval. "But you can slue your seat round and work your gun from the right if you like. You will find everything ready for use, signalling lamp and a fine map." And with a blue pencil he marked off the course they were about to take and the various landmarks, for which a sharp look out must be kept.

Then the whir of machinery cut off all possibility of further conversation; Dennis gazed round at the darkening landscape as Laval released her, and after a short run forward over the grassland the Aviatik began to rise.

So far, Dennis had not counted the cost of his adventurous expedition, or the by no means remote possibilities of his being captured and sent to terrible Ruhleben. He had only seen the dash and daring of it all, and now he could only see the velvety blackness that lay thousands of feet beneath, where the earth was.

Once from very far below them the boom of guns made itself heard, even above the flogging of the engines and the whir of the tractor in front of him, and his pilot handed back a scrap of paper on which he had scrawled some words.

Switching on his torch Dennis read: "We are crossing our own lines now. That light away to my left is Metz. We are over Lorraine, and I am going to turn south-east."

Through his glasses Dennis could see a dull glow in the distance, which was soon left behind as Laval altered the course, and for some time their flight was through cloud-banks which hid everything.

After a while the pilot passed him another message. "Look down; we cannot be far from the Rhine now, and it is important to know when we cross it. Keep a sharp look out."

The depression of the point of the nacelle told Dennis that the Aviatik was planing down to a lower altitude, and when, some distance ahead, he saw the milky gleam of a river winding away to right and left, he hung over the side with the powerful German glasses glued to his eyes.

The moment it passed beneath them he touched Laval on the shoulder, and, swinging round again to the right, they flew almost due south, still coming down lower and lower.

It was a clear night, and the visible difference in the blackness of the ground here and there told Dennis that they were traversing above mountainous country, while the little bright specks shining like glow-worms marked the existence of enemy towns and villages, whose inhabitants fancied themselves secure from the daring French airmen.

With the exception of the historic raid upon Karlsruhe they had seldom journeyed so far afield.

For a moment the engines ceased working, and Laval shouted to his companion: "We must be close to the place now. There should be a hill covered with pine trees in front of us, and the hangar lies within a league beyond it on a flat plain."

"Then yonder it is!" cried Dennis. "There is no end of a strong light showing ahead. That ragged edge that looms against it must be your tree tops."

"Good!" replied the pilot. "Get your bombs ready. When I shut off again we shall he as nearly above the spot as one can judge."

He restarted the engines. In the distance a curious yellow glow outlined the hill, and as they sailed clear of the pines the glow resolved itself into a considerable illumination, for which the pilot steered.

Rows of electric lamps formed a huge parallelogram, in the centre of which was a long black object, undoubtedly the airship hangar.

"By Jupiter!" yelled Dennis; "we're in luck to-night! The Zeppelin's coming out!"

He forgot that his words were completely drowned, and he received a sudden shock when the brilliant beam of a searchlight flashed up from the ground, and, after a circling swoop, found them and held them in its fierce eye. Every stay and rivet was as clearly visible to him as though it had been noonday, and it was a trying moment.

As another light challenged them, and asked "Who are you?" he remembered Laval's previous instructions, and showing his signal lamp, replied in the Morse code, "Blumberger, returning from reconnaissance beyond Muelhausen."

Blumberger was lying dead under the mackintosh in the cornfield near Bar-le-Duc, and Dennis was wearing his outer garments; but the message had been understood, and was followed by the command: "L30 coming out now. Be careful until all is clear; then report, Blumberger!"

"Yes, we will be very careful!" muttered Claude Laval, who had read off the message at the same time; and flying slowly at scarcely more than five hundred feet above the ground he steered towards the hangar.

Out of the giant shed the great grey nose of the Zeppelin came gliding into view, shining like some silver thing in the light of the electric lamps, the army of men who guided its movements looking like so many busy ants as the searchlights switched off the Aviatik and focused on the airship, evidently for their own guidance.

Suddenly the Aviatik dipped, and Laval made a gesture with his helmeted head. There was no Rolland releasing apparatus fitted to the machine, and the Frenchman's ten bombs were ranged on either side of the observer.

He knew the moment had come, and with a rapid movement Dennis flung them over into space! As the sixth left his hand he felt the machine begin to mount steeply as Laval opened the throttle and put the engines to their fullest power, and the remaining four death-dealing missiles were dropped out at random.

Peering down over the edge, three tremendous explosions reached their ears, followed by another and another; and then everything was drowned in the mightiest explosion of them all, as Zeppelin and hangar burst into a sheet of flame.

Wider and wider it spread, and higher it rose, a great red and yellow roar of lapping tongues, sometimes hidden by dense black smoke, only to flare out brighter than before.

And still the raider climbed at a perilous angle, and at such a speed that Dennis gave up all attempts to use his glasses.

As he clung with one hand to a gun bracket, looking giddily down, something screamed past the aeroplane, missing the wings by only a few feet, and a shrapnel shell burst overhead.

"I thought 'Archibald' would have something to say to us," muttered Dennis, as Laval banked away to the right, still rising. "Hallo! Now they've got us!" And three brilliant beams shot into the night sky, one of them focusing the Aviatik and the two others instantly joining it, to show the anti-aircraft gunners their target.

Laval dived—a breathless, daring swoop down—as two shells burst above their heads; but, quick as he was, a shower of bullets rained through one of the wings. Dennis could see the holes when the searchlights got them again, and the side of the fuselage was pitted with dents.

Right and left, above and below, in front and behind them, the whole sky was suddenly alive with shell bursts; and into the observer's brain came the recollection that he had an interview with General Joffre at eight o'clock that morning! He found himself actually smiling at the thought, and wishing that he could speak to the man in front of him—the helmeted man with rounded shoulders bent over his wheel, who pressed levers and bent the control pillar this way and that, as he sent the biplane zigzagging through the heavens with a suddenness that bumped Dennis about, and threatened more than once to fling him out into eternity.

He did not feel the cold, although it was intense; and he had the presence of mind to pass a strap round his waist and fasten himself in. And then he crouched there, marvelling at their luck and the iron nerve of his companion, who, so far, was responsible for their escape.

He knew that they were already a long way from the blazing airship which they had destroyed, and a feeling of exultation took possession of the lad. They were going to win through—they would do it yet; it was written that they were to get free, and he closed his eyes, giddy with the whirl of mingled emotions that filled him.

They had eluded the searchlights for a moment, but another screaming shell overtook them, and as it burst he opened his eyes, and saw Claude Laval sink forward and huddle up on top of his wheel.

"By Jingo, they've got him!" gasped Dennis, sickening with fear for the first time; but recovering himself on the instant, he flung off the strap and reached forward in an attempt to get to the wounded Frenchman without any very distinct idea of what he could do if he succeeded.

But Laval, as though he had read his thoughts, straightened himself and gave a jerk with his head, at the same time sending the machine earthward in a nose dive at an appalling angle.

Dennis clung to the front of the circular cockpit which was the observer's post, and again his eyes closed as the downward rush took his breath away.

"Poor little mater!" And there was a world of agony in the boy's thought, interrupted by finding himself precipitated backwards in a heap, as the nacelle lifted and the dive was checked.

Only for a moment, however, for down they shot again, the downward course being a harrowing succession of switchback curves, which ended in a curious silent glide on even keel, a terrific jolting and a dead stop.

"Are you there?" said an odd, far-away voice, as Dennis slowly gathered himself up with a sigh of heartfelt relief.

"Yes, I'm here. You don't mean to say we're actually on the ground and safe!" he cried hoarsely.

"Hush! Do not speak too loud!" groaned Laval. "We are as safe as we can be on German soil, but I am afraid my right shoulder is broken; and worse still, the engines stopped of their own accord before we made that last dive."

Dennis, as soon as he had recovered from the species of partial paralysis which had taken possession of his limbs, climbed forward to his companion, who rested his head against his shoulder for a moment, and groaned faintly through his clenched teeth.

"That was magnificent, Laval!" whispered Dennis. "Where is the flask of cognac? Here, drink this!"

"Thanks, my dear friend," murmured the wounded Frenchman. "Do not worry about me. It is a question of what is wrong with the Aviatik. There is just one hope for us. Look at the petrol tank. Oh, you can use a light, for, remember we are Germans now if anyone comes along."

Torch in hand, Dennis examined the petrol tank carefully, and his voice shook with renewed hope.

"The tank is untouched," he reported. "But there is only an inch of spirit left at the bottom of it. That's the trouble. There is something like a house yonder among the trees. What do you say?"

"There is only one thing to be said, my dear Blumberger," replied Laval, with a faint smile. "We must commandeer petrol without delay. I find my arm is not broken after all, but I am bleeding like a pig. It is running into my boot. Help me out, and we will see what the good people over there can do for us."

"Have you any idea where we are?" queried Dennis, as he assisted his wounded companion to the ground with some difficulty.

"Somewhere in the Black Forest," replied Laval. "And unfortunately not much more than ten miles, scarcely that, from the Zeppelin shed. They will search for us, never fear; they are searching now! Moreover, it will be daylight directly, and it is necessary that we hurry ourselves if you want to keep your appointment."



CHAPTER XII

In the Hands of the Enemy

Some distance away, and seemingly on slightly higher ground, a light was shining, and a second light moved with a curious jerky motion and then disappeared.

The raiders knew that their safety depended on playing a tremendous game of bluff, and that before the news of their adventure spread.

Already a faint grey veil was creeping over the darkness, and at the end of several minutes they found themselves approaching a beech wood which clothed the base of a high hill, and saw that the stationary light came from a curious castellated building at the edge of the wood, where a rustic bridge spanned a swift stream. There was no one about, and the iron-bound door was open.

"Somebody's hunting-lodge," muttered Laval. "They have gone up the hill to see what the explosion meant. That was a lantern we saw moving among the trees."

"Well, it's nothing venture nothing have," said Dennis; and they went in noisily.

The walls of the hall were covered with boar spears and trophies of the chase, but they had scarcely time to glance round them when an old woman came forward out of the darkness with her hands raised.

"Gentlemen!" she cried; "can you tell us the cause of that terrible noise that shook the castle a little while ago?"

"Yes, good wife; it was an awful explosion at the Zeppelin shed over yonder," replied Dennis. "We had the misfortune to be flying over the spot when it happened, and my observer was struck. I am the Lieutenant Blumberger of whom you may have heard." And he imitated the overbearing manner of a Prussian officer.

He had condescended to satisfy the woman's curiosity, but now he must be obeyed.

"To whom does this house belong?"

"It is the hunting-schloss of Count Rudolf von Rudolfstein," said the old woman. "But my master is away serving with the army, and there are only my husband and myself here. Karl has gone up the hill. He said it was an accident, and one can see the ground from there."

"I know the Count very well," said Dennis, looking round the entrance-hall as though the place were his own. "Get me a basin of hot water and some towels. And is it possible that you have any petrol here?"

"There is plenty in the garage," said the old woman, "but I cannot get it until Karl returns. But, Himmel, the gentleman will bleed to death!" And she pointed to a great red pool gathering on the stone floor as Laval leaned heavily against a table. "Come in here!" And, carrying a lamp with her, she unlocked another door, and led the way into a handsome room, lined with polished pine, with a huge stove at one end.

Laval, who was suffering agonies, sank with a groan into the first chair, and with an exclamation of commiseration the caretaker's wife hurried away in search of bandages.

"It is good so far," whispered Laval through his clenched teeth. "Leave me to the mercies of this ancient dame; she will stop the bleeding if she can do nothing else. But, for Heaven's sake, find that petrol!"

"That's all very well," said Dennis desperately, when a cough made him turn, and he swung round to see a bent old man, with a long white moustache and a lantern in his hand, standing in the doorway.

"Good! You are Karl," he said at once, repeating his explanation of their presence. "Count von Rudolfstein is my friend, and if he were here his house would be at our disposal. I must fill my tank without delay and return yonder."

"It is terrible, Herr Officer. The whole ground seems to be burning!" said the old man, completely disarmed by the cleverness of the lad's impersonation. "How much petrol do you require?"

"Twenty gallons, if you have it. Let us lose no time. Here is your good frau who will look after my observer."

"And to think, Herr Officer," said the old man. "One of the new super-Zeppelins that was going to punish England for her treachery! Oh that I was a young man again, and I had an Englishman within reach of these arms! They are still strong enough to strangle him!"

Dennis let him ramble on, and followed him as he strode out of the hall to a coach-house that had been converted into a garage.

A very handsome car stood over the inspection pit, and at one end of the building was a great stack of petrol tins. Evidently the Count was a wealthy man, and evidently too there was not that shortage of petrol in Germany that some of the English papers had been exulting over of late.

"Wait a moment," said the old forester, as Dennis seized a couple of tins in each hand. "We can sling more of them than that on this pole, and carry it between us."

Dennis inwardly congratulated himself that the old forester had not only no suspicions, but was also a man of resource; and the pair were soon crossing the bridge on their way to the aeroplane, which was now distinctly visible in the growing light.

"Ah!" chuckled the old man, pointing to the distinguished mark painted in black on the Aviatik's side, "they gave my son the Iron Cross for bravery at a place they call Verdun, but I am sorry he did not win it for killing Englishmen."

"Well, you can tell me what he did do while you hand me the tins," said Dennis, climbing up and unscrewing the cap of the tank, and the gurgle of the liquid into the big receptacle was like music to his ears.

"I tell you what it is, my friend," he said, when he had emptied the last tin; "we could do with a few more, and I also see there is something here that requires my attention."

His quick eye had noticed that one of the stays which supported the upper plane wanted tightening, and he opened a tool bag.

"I will bring them; I will not be long," said the old man, who was delighted to have had a listener to the story of his son's exploits, never thinking how little of it the herr lieutenant had really heard.

"There, that's secure," said Dennis to himself. "I wonder why that old dodderer is so long? I must get back and see how poor Laval is getting on, and then, heigh-ho for La Belle France!"

As he straightened his back the dull thud of galloping hoofs made him turn round, and to his dismay he saw a couple of German officers approaching across the sandy plain.

"By Jupiter! Talk about bluff now!" he thought. "Thank goodness they're coming from the right direction!" And drawing himself stiffly up, he saluted as they reined in below him.

They were both of high rank—one of them a colonel; and it was the colonel who spoke first as he and his companion flung themselves from their horses.

"You heard it?" he cried in a voice that thrilled with excitement.

"Everyone within twenty miles must have heard it, Herr Colonel," said Dennis solemnly.

"Do you know the extent of the damage?" was the next question.

"I do not. I had a little trouble with my engines, and was just on the point of going there to see what had happened."

It was perhaps the worst thing he could have said, for the two officers immediately climbed up and squeezed themselves into the observer's cockpit.

"Quick! You will carry us there. It is a command!" said the colonel. And Dennis's eyes roved in vain round the pilot's seat for any sign of a weapon.

He bent down under pretence of examining the shaft of the steering-wheel to collect his thoughts and compose his features, and then a thought came to him.

Had they been on the ground he would have pleaded that his engines were still wrong, but it was too late now.

"I will take you willingly, Herr Colonel," he said. And, sitting down, he passed the two ends of the securing strap round his waist, and drew the buckle tight.

"You are a long time, young man," said the colonel's companion.

"We are off now," replied Dennis, starting the engines to avoid any awkward questioning, and breathing a silent prayer that they were all right.

He thought of Laval, too, and wondered what he would think when he heard the whir; and it was as well that he did not know what was happening to his French friend, or possibly he would have failed to keep his nerve for the task he had set himself!

The horses shied, and bolted across the plain, but no one thought of them as the Aviatik ran uneasily forward over the soft ground and rose like a bird.

For a few minutes they mounted skyward, climbing slowly, and the stout General tried to make his companion understand by much gesticulation that the blockhead was taking the wrong direction.

But the "blockhead" knew what he was about, and after a half circle to test the working of the engines, he opened the throttle and shot her upwards at a terrific speed.

Well might his two passengers cling desperately to the gun brackets and to each other, but their shriek of terror was drowned as the machine gained an altitude of fifteen hundred feet and deliberately looped the loop!

For a moment Dennis braced himself and clutched the wheel like a vice, but the strap held, the circle was completed, and the Aviatik, righting herself, skimmed over the pine-topped hill behind the hunting lodge, and planed majestically down towards the starting-point.

Dennis's face was as white as a sheet of paper as he turned and glanced back over his shoulder. He was alone!

"I hope it was playing the game," he muttered, as he brought the machine to a stand. "At any rate, it was the only game I could play under the circumstances."

He jumped down and ran towards the lodge, feeling shaken and trembly, wondering what he would find. It struck him as odd that the garrulous old forester had not returned. Was Laval dead or dying?

As he crossed the stream and mounted the slope he stopped, for the old man's voice was bellowing furiously, and the old woman screamed in concert.

"What on earth is going on?" thought the lad, and seeing that the shutters of the ground-floor room in which he had left his friend had been opened, and it being very nearly broad daylight, instead of entering the hall he sprang to the window and looked in.

Claude Laval, terribly weak from loss of blood, but with an odd, defiant smile on his face, was sitting upright in the carved chair, the sleeve of his wounded arm slit from shoulder to wrist, revealing the drenched blue-grey of his own French uniform beneath it. In front of him, his white moustache bristling with fury, and murder in every line of his wolf-like face, the old forester lifted a hatchet in both hands, while his wife, no longer the trembling servile old peasant of half an hour before, was tightening the knots of the rope she had thrown round Laval's body, binding him tightly to the chair!

* * * * *

In the little village three leagues from Bar-le-Duc a powerful car drew up in a cloud of dust in front of the restaurant where our friends had dined the night before, and General Joffre stepped from it on to the pavement.

"Ah, what? You do not know where he is? No one has seen him—the young English lieutenant who was to meet me here?" said the General, knitting his white eyebrows. "That is strange; but never mind"—and he drew out his watch—"it still wants four minutes to eight."

Leaning his elbow on the side of the automobile with one foot planted on the step, the great Frenchman waited, talking meanwhile with a Divisional General who had something to report.

"Yes, yes," said the Generalissimo, and then he looked at his watch again. The minute hand pointed to the hour, but Sir Douglas Haig's messenger had not come!



CHAPTER XIII

A Mad Gamble for Liberty

When Dennis Dashwood saw that terrible tableau through the window of Von Rudolfstein's hunting-lodge, his first thought was that he had arrived too late to save his friend; and, drawing his revolver from beneath Blumberger's flying coat, he raced for the front entrance.

"Scoundrel and pig! I will split your skull even as I ground that cross of yours beneath my heel!" Dennis heard the old man bellow. "I will be bound you know more about the destruction of that fine Zeppelin than you will admit. Come, have you not finished yet, thou clumsy old fool?"

"Clumsy old fool, indeed!" screamed the woman. "Who was it discovered that he was a Frenchman, I'd like to know? You will be taking the whole credit to yourself, worthless one!"

"No, I want some of the credit myself," said a stern young voice from the doorway. "Shame on you both to treat a wounded man thus!" And he fired at one of the huge hands that held the woodcutter's axe.

The formidable weapon fell with a clang on to the floor, and the forester gave a howl like a wounded beast.

"Quick, Gretchen, ring the alarm bell! They will hear it at the village!"

The old woman, who had sent up a piercing shriek, ran towards another door; but Dennis was too quick for her, and, putting out his foot, she pitched headlong on to the stone floor and lay quite still.

"Move your own length," he cried to the husband, laying his revolver by the side of the basin of hot water, "and I will shoot you like a dog! Courage, Laval! All is ready, and I'll have you out of this in a brace of shakes."

"Ma foi! you must forgive me, my dear friend," said the wounded officer. "When I heard the machine rise, I thought for a moment that you had deemed it wiser to save yourself."

"I'll tell you all about that afterwards," said Dennis grimly. "I'm going to save you now." And, cutting the cord, he threw the knife into the basin and proceeded to make a slip-knot. "We must make this old ruffian secure first."

"Look out!" exclaimed Laval. And Dennis raised his eyes just in time, for the cunning German had made a spring for the table, and already his unwounded hand had clutched the knife-handle. It was a huge thing, such as a butcher might use, and sharp as a razor.

"You will have it, will you?" said Dennis grimly, and he shot the man through the heart. "It has saved me the trouble of binding him, and that makes the third Boche I have accounted for this morning. By Jove, old chap! you've got it pretty badly. Whatever happens, I must stop that bleeding."

The knife with which the woman had cut the sleeve of the leather jacket had revealed a terrible jagged wound in the Frenchman's shoulder, from which the blood welled through his fingers as he grasped it; but Dennis, tearing some linen that the woman had brought into strips, improvised a couple of tourniquets, utilising the spindles of a chair which he smashed to pieces for the purpose, and to his intense satisfaction he found the haemorrhage considerably reduced.

"Now, do you think you can walk?" he said anxiously. And Laval got up, reeling from the enormous quantity of blood he had lost.

"Half a mo!" said Dennis quickly. "This noose I had meant for Karl there will make a first-rate sling for that arm of yours. Another pull at the flask—that's good—and now we absolutely must make a move."

"One moment!" exclaimed Laval, pointing across the room. "There is a French flag yonder. Will you do me the goodness to tear it from the wall and bring it with you? I cannot leave that trophy in the hands of these hogs. Besides, it may be useful to us later on."

Dennis ran across the room and lifted the silk tricolour from the hooks on which it hung, reading as he did so an inscription in faded gold letters on the shot-riven folds.

Von Rudolfstein's father had captured that colour in the war of 1870 at the head of his Cuirassiers, and it had hung there ever since.

"Look at all that remains of my beloved decoration!" murmured Laval, pointing to the floor.

"They shall give you another for last night's work," said Dennis.

Leaning on the boy's strong arm, the pilote aviateur set out gamely, crossed the entrance hall, and had almost gained the rustic bridge when the clanging notes of a deep-tongued bell broke out behind them.

"The old vixen has soon come to her senses. Let us hope the village is not too near, for it will take us ten minutes at this rate," said Laval, squeezing the arm that supported him as his companion looked back.

He had heard it at the same moment—a hoarse shout from many voices and the trample of hoofs at the hunting-lodge.

"By Jingo! Cavalry!" said the lad.

"You must leave me and run for it. Good luck, old fellow!" exclaimed Claude Laval. But Dennis gave an odd smile and stooped down.

"Put your arm round my neck!" he cried. "I'm not going without you, so argument is useless and will only waste time. It will give you a bit of a twisting, I know. Now, stick tight!" And he started to run with the wounded man on his shoulders.

Several times he nearly stumbled, for the ground was sandy, but he had accomplished two-thirds of the distance when the alarm bell stopped, and there was a chorus of savage shouts from the house they had left.

"Hold on like grim death!" panted Dennis. "We'll do it yet!" And bracing himself for the last few yards, he doubled the pace and reached the shadow of the aeroplane as the leading files of a troop of Uhlans thundered across the bridge.

A stifled cry broke from Laval's lips, though he tried hard to repress it, as Dennis dragged him up by main force and tumbled him into the observer's cockpit.

"I know I've given the poor chap beans," he muttered to himself, as he handed him the captured tricolour. And, jumping down into the pilot's seat, he started the engines going for the second time that morning.

The officer at the head of the yelling horsemen was not thirty lengths away when the Aviatik began to move; and, roaring out an order to his men to draw their carbines, he emptied his own revolver at random.

Afterwards, when Dennis came to think calmly of that moment, he grew cold and shivered; but at the time itself his heart had given a mighty throb as the rubber-tyred wheels of the chassis left the ground, and they started on their long flight for home.

He knew perfectly well, as several bullets pierced the lifting planes and one starred on the stay he had tightened, that their troubles had by no means ceased when they left the Uhlans behind them. By that time keen eyes would be watching, not only the earth, but the sky, and he had only his wits to guide him.

There was the sun just rising to show him which was the east, and already far down below he saw the ribbon of the Rhine which they must cross; but sluing round to look back, he saw the thing he feared—an escadrille of German aircraft rising from the plain over which the smoke from the Zeppelin hangar still hung.

Already the enemy airmen were in pursuit!

Claude Laval had turned towards him at the same moment, and their eyes met. He had seen it too, but the blanched face of the wounded man shone with hope and confidence. His mouth opened, though the words were lost, but he made a gesture with his sound arm, and Dennis understood.

They were heavy clouds to which Laval had pointed, and Dennis steered straight for them, devouring the chart with his eyes.

Far down below and ahead of them in the extreme distance was the blue line of the Vosges, and he thought he could distinguish the Ballon d'Alsace, but of that he was not sure. His pursuers would naturally imagine that he would make for the nearest point of the French frontier, but that was not in his mind. If he had to deal with the fast-rising Fokkers, his only chance he knew was to gain the cloud-bank and keep within its protecting folds.

To fight with a wounded observer was out of the question, and already he had decided to steer north-west rather than due west, which would bring him, roughly, somewhere between Epinal and Nancy—always provided that he was not overtaken.

There were a thousand risks to run, not only from the enemy fleet, but from the French guns when he should come in sight of them; but as they soared into the chill blanket of vapour his spirits rose, and for a moment he shut off the engines to listen.

The whir and throb of their pursuers already seemed to come from every point of the compass—from below, from either side and, what was more alarming, from above; but banking sharply to the right he thrashed his course at topmost speed, praying that the cloud-bank might not cease.

The baragraph showed him that he was already eight thousand feet above the earth, and, straightening out the machine, he wiped the mist from his goggles with the back of his glove and kept on.

All at once the Aviatik shot out of the cloud with a clear stretch of sky in front of them, and, looking back and upwards, he saw the wicked nose of a Fokker emerge into view on their right beam a couple of hundred yards away and well above them.

Already their own machine was approaching another cloud-bank, but the Fokker had seen them, and plunged downward in their direction.

The instant the cloud swallowed them up Dennis concentrated all his efforts on the foot-bar which controlled the vertical rudder, and, grasping the wheel at the same time, swung sharply to the left, leaving their pursuer to dive down five hundred feet into space before he discovered that he had missed his mark.

Neither of them knew that the nose of the Fokker had been within twelve inches of the Aviatik's tail-planes; and but for the fact that the German suspended his fire at the moment of diving, it would have been all over with the raiders.

Dennis reverted to his old tactics when he found that they had escaped, and turning to the right again, with an anxious eye on the compass, saw no more of the enemy for nearly a quarter of an hour, until, emerging into a burst of bright sunshine and looking down, he found himself immediately over a fierce engagement on the eastern crest of the Vosges mountains. Shells were bursting below them, and though he did not know it, they were passing above the Col de la Schlucht, from which the French guns were bombarding Munster. He could see the enormous puffs of smoke—white, black, and some of them tinged with yellow—but what was of greater moment to them both was the presence of the enemy machines a few miles to the southward.

They, too, were just leaving the cloud-bank, which ended there, misled by the idea that their prey would make a bee-line for safety; but they saw the Aviatik at the same moment that Dennis saw them, and circled round to cut him off from home.

Dennis realised that he was now above French soil. His engines were working magnificently, and dropping to an altitude of two thousand metres, which gave him a clear view of towns and buildings, he consulted his chart, identified Nancy far away on his right front, and trusted all to Providence.

He had judged wisely, as it proved, and knew that he was out-distancing the enemy aircraft tearing in hot pursuit—all but one persistent Fokker that evidently meant business. He even found time to glance backward at his companion, who, with the folds of the French flag wrapped round his shattered shoulder to dull the force of the keen air, sat huddled up in his cockpit, apparently insensible.

Once a shell came up from the ground, and burst between pursuer and pursued, and a gleam of fierce hope shot through the lad's heart as he saw the French "75" making good practice against the vicious little gadfly.

Higher and higher mounted the Fokker to get out of range, and still Dennis kept on, remembering his appointment with the French Generalissimo, and glancing alternately from the chart to the little clock beside the aneroid barometer, whose registration was useless at that height.

"Twenty-five minutes! Great Scott! can I do it?" he muttered, clutching the control wheel with his frozen fingers.

* * * * *

"Well, messieurs, it is a pity, and I am afraid something must have happened to that young officer," said General Joffre, consulting his watch for the last time. "I must find another messenger to carry my reply to the Commander-in-Chief of our Allies."

And then he stopped as a murmured exclamation broke from the group of officers, and everyone looked up to the grey sky across which some rainclouds were drifting.

"It is an aerial combat, mon General," said one of them. "Ma foi! I should not care to travel at that speed, let alone fight with nothing under one's feet!"

Two dots scarcely larger than flies on a window-pane had suddenly detached themselves from the rain clouds, and were manoeuvring curiously in the direction of the village. Larger and larger they grew, the smaller dot obviously trying to gain the advantage of height, and mingling with the throb of the engines they could now hear the rattle of a machine-gun.

"What is the meaning of this?" said the Generalissimo, fixing them with his glass. "These machines are German. I can see the Iron Cross painted upon them both. Send word to the battery yonder to make ready. It is a raid, and they are adopting those manoeuvres to deceive us."

By the wall of the restaurant the young French chauffeur, Martique, who had driven Dennis to that place, waited with a smile dancing in his eyes, hoping against hope that the thing of which he alone knew was the thing that was taking place up yonder!

He started when he heard the Generalissimo's order, for even yet he could not be sure, but the dots had now grown so large that it was possible to tell the make of the two machines, and somebody said: "The first one is an Aviatik; the other is a Fokker."

If the seeming chase were a piece of German stage management it was certainly being carried out with marvellous realism, for now Martique could distinctly see the puffs of the machine-gun, and that the bullets were ripping through the lifting planes of the Aviatik.

"Mon General!" he cried suddenly, "for the love of heaven order our battery not to fire! Look! The observer in that machine is waving a French flag. He has dropped it now, and he slues his gun into position—but with one arm only! He is wounded!"

"Do you know what you are talking about, young man?" said the Generalissimo sternly.

"Forgive me, mon General!" faltered Martique. "It was a little secret. Oh, look! The Fokker has got the top place, and is about to ram poor Laval and his English companion!"

Everyone held his breath, for indeed it was as Martique had cried. The Aviatik was volplaning down in a wide spiral now, and above it the relentless pursuer poised like a hawk. He was judging the circumference of those spiral curves, and even the Generalissimo himself tightened his lips under the huge white moustache.

Over the side of the fuselage there was no mistaking the glorious red, white and blue that fluttered wildly in the descent, and then the Aviatik's swivel-gun spoke three times. A German always speaks French badly, but that German gun rang out with a true accent that time, and the Fokker gave a strange quiver, burst into a sheet of flame, and dropped like a stone to death and destruction six thousand feet below!

The engines of the Aviatik ceased; the nacelle, pointing earthwards, curved suddenly up again, and floating for some distance like a tired bird, the machine dropped out of sight on the other side of the tall poplars.

There was an instant stampede to the spot, the Generalissimo himself following, unable to curb his curiosity; but as he reached the bank at the edge of the cornfield a running figure in leather jacket and flying helmet checked his pace and, throwing up his goggles, saluted smartly.

"Mon General, I hope you will accept my apology," said Dennis Dashwood. "I am five minutes behind my time, but I am here, and I have a good deal to tell you!"



CHAPTER XIV

The Sing-Song in the Dug-out

Three surgeons, hastily summoned to the spot, knelt with their instruments beside Claude Laval, not twenty yards from the bodies of the two German airmen whom he had brought down the afternoon before, and in the circle that surrounded them stood the Generalissimo, holding the old French colour which would never ornament the walls of that distant hunting-lodge again.

"He will recover," said one of the doctors, getting up from his knee. "But he will want the most careful attention. The whole thing is marvellous. There is not one man in a thousand that could have lived through such an adventure!"

The pilote aviateur opened his eyes, for he had heard the surgeon's words.

"Mon General," he said, but so faintly that the Commander of the French Armies had to stoop over him, "I should not have lived if it had not been for my companion. He is brave, that boy—oh, braver than I can make you understand. But, mon General," and a wistful look came into the deep-sunk eyes, "they have taken my Cross of the Legion and destroyed it!"

"You were a chevalier of the Order, mon lieutenant, if I remember," said the Generalissimo. "The Republic does not forget her sons when they behave as you have behaved. You shall have another Cross, and this time it will be the Cross of an Officer of the Legion of Honour. And listen! The English lieutenant shall have one too, if the word of Cesar Joffre carries any weight in France. Messieurs, let us salute these two brave men who have both deserved so well of the Republic!" And, lifting his kepi, the gallant Frenchman kissed Dennis on both cheeks amid a burst of generous applause that came from the hearts of all of them.

"Cher ami," whispered Claude Laval, "if you see my brother, you will tell him of our little escapade, hein?"

Dennis pressed Laval's left hand in both his own as he left him with a happy smile on his face; and with a last look at the Aviatik, followed General Joffre to his automobile.

"Adieu, lieutenant!" said the great soldier, with a lingering grip after an interview that lasted half an hour, "I have no other message for your General. He will find it all written in that envelope, which you will give him."

"Now, Martique," said Dennis, settling himself beside him in the motor, "I am in your hands." And almost before the car had started, Second Lieutenant Dennis Dashwood, of the 2/12 Battalion, Royal Reedshire Regiment, was sound asleep!

* * * * *

"Oh, hang it, Martique! What did you wake me for? I haven't been asleep five minutes," grumbled Dennis. And then he sat bolt upright as he recognised the handsome face of the man who had shaken him by the shoulder, and saw the amused smile in his eyes.

"It is a good car, I admit," said Sir Douglas Haig. "But I hardly think it has done the mileage between this place and Bar-le-Duc in so short a time as that, and your chauffeur tells me that you have snored all the way."

Dennis gasped, to find himself once more in front of the headquarters of the General Commanding in Chief, and turned scarlet.

"I took the liberty of abstracting General Joffre's reply from your pocket without disturbing you," continued Sir Douglas. "And I have had the story of your extraordinary exploit from Martique here. Take my advice, Dashwood, and be chary in future about embarking on such adventures; they hardly come within the scope of your day's duty."

And then, seeing the shamefaced look that came over the lad, he added quickly: "Do not read any censure into my words; they were only intended to convey a little fatherly advice. And now the question arises, what is to be done with you? You have shown a most remarkable aptitude, and General Joffre has given such an account of your nerve that I am in two minds whether or not to transfer you to my personal staff—or would you prefer a spell of duty with your regiment?"

"Do you mean for the Great Push?" said Dennis, in an eager voice.

"Confound your great push!" said the General, with a faint flash of sternness in his expressive eyes. "There's too much talk knocking around about our future movements."

For the life of him Dennis could not help smiling all over his face.

"Well, I see where your heart lies," said the G.O.C. in Chief; "and Martique, who is going your way, shall give you a lift. I wish you the best of good luck, Mr. Dashwood, and I am very much obliged to you for the way you have carried out your mission."

"By Jove!" whispered Dennis, as the car started for the firing-line. "He did not deny it. There is to be a push, and I'm going to be in it!"

* * * * *

The guns still thundered, and the shells had never ceased to rend and pulverise the enemy position day and night. Otherwise, everything was quiet on our front. The raids had ceased, and the wind was unfavourable to any German gas attack.

"Come on, Dennis," said his brother; "there's nothing doing, and I'm fed up. Let's drop in to that sing-song for an hour. They've got an awfully good chap I'm told, who plays the piano like a blooming Paderewski."