“Our job is a funny one, and we’re not here for ourselves, and we’re not here to be heroes or to get in the newspapers. The V. C.’s are few and far between.” He raised himself upon his elbow. “I’m not preaching self-abasement and a greater loyalty to a cause that is right, mind you. I don’t know anything about causes or who started the war or why, and I don’t care. I’m preaching C Flight and the lives of five men. “You saw Mallory over at the hangar. It was teamwork that put him there in his own M. O.’s hands. Not much, perhaps”--the cigarette described a quick arc in the darkness--“just a slight closing in of the formation--a wave of somebody’s hand--somebody else dropping back and climbing above him to protect his tail from any stray Huns that might’ve waylaid him on the way home. That’s what I mean. ‘Esprit de corps’ is a cold, hard phrase. Call it what you like. It’s the greatest lesson you learn. Never give up a man.” Hoyt laughed. “They call me an old woman. Perhaps I am. Take it or leave it. “Slick up a bit and come into my hutch while I scrape off the outer layer of silt. Dinner in half a tick and I’m as filthy as a pig.” He vaulted up from the cot and punched his cigarette out against the sole of his boot. At the door he paused for a moment. “Ever have wind up?” he asked casually. Paterson stiffened against the question and the small spot of fear danced within him. “No,” he said firmly. Hoyt shrugged. “Lucky man.” And he went out into the passageway. At dinner he met the rest of the squadron and the other men in C Flight. Mallory, very pale, with his arm slung in a soft pad of bandages, sat beside him. They were coming for him later to take him down to the base hospital. Phelps-Barrington sat on the other side of Mallory, mourning the fact that the wound was not his, that he might get the inevitable leave to follow. Phelps-Barrington took Paterson’s hand with a shrug and asked how Marguerite was in Amiens. “What? You didn’t meet Marguerite on your way through? ’Struth!” MacClintock sat across the table beside Hoyt--MacClintock, too young to grow a moustache, but with a deep burr that smelled of the heather in the Highlands and huge pink knees under his Seaforth kilts, muscles like the corded roots of an oak. The other man in the flight, Trent, was down with mild flu. He was due back in a week or so from hospital. There was a wild argument on about the dawn patrol the next morning. Paterson listened to the fragments of talk that flew like sabre cuts across the glasses: “He’s in a red tripe. I don’t give a damn for Intelligence. Saw him this morning myself. Same machine Mac and I had that brush with down at Péronne.” “The next time they’ll get an idea for us to strafe a road clear to Cologne for them. What are we--street cleaners?”