“So I let go a covey of Coopers and turned for home. They had it spotted for a battery over at 119 Squadron. I saw the pictures. Right pictures, but wrong map squares as usual. That crowd can’t tell a battery from a Chinese labour-corps inclosure. I’d rather be a staff officer than a two-seater pilot.” “Steward, a whisky-soda for Mr. MacClintock and myself. Have one, Hoyt? You, Paterson?” Cruel, thin, casual talk clicking against the teeth in nervous haste; the commercial talk of men bartering their lives against each tick of the clock; men caught like rats in a trap, with no escape but death or a lucky chance like Mallory’s. Caught and yet denying the trap--laughing at it until the low roof of the mess shack rumbled with the echo; drowning it in a whisky for the night. Afterward, Hoyt came down the passage with him to his room--Hoyt, with his face cleaned of the afternoon’s oil and his eyes slightly bright with the wine he had taken. “We’re relieved to-morrow on account of casualties,” he said. “I’ll tick you out early and we’ll go joy riding--see what we can teach each other.” He smiled. “’Night.” Paterson undressed slowly and threw back the flap of his sleeping bag. He ran his fingers softly down the muscles of his left arm. Automatically they stopped at the spot Mallory had been hit. He stretched his thumb from the arm to his heart--seven inches. He shrugged. Nice to go that way. Clean and quick. He sat upon the edge of his cot and pulled on his pajama trousers. Oh, well, this was the place--the last place he had to go to. This was the cot he would sleep his last sleep in. If it weren’t a lonely job! That chap in the mess who wouldn’t be a two-seater pilot for anything. If he could only feel like that. If he could only feel Hoyt’s complacency. Hoyt, with his calm smile and the two little ribbons under his wings. Military Cross and the Legion of Honour, and three months before he had been green--pucka green! Paterson blew out the light and turned in. Hoyt was a good fellow--damned decent. Outside he could hear Phelps-Barrington’s voice muffled by the snow: “Come on, snap into it! Tender for Amiens! Who’s coming?” The yell died in the roar from the car’s engine. Paterson lay for a moment thinking; then suddenly he reached for his pocket flash, snapped it, and stared nervously at the empty cot across the room. There was no bedding on it, nor any kit tucked under it; only the chair beside it, and the cracked mirror. He got up and padded over in his bare feet. Stencilled on one corner of the canvas there was a name--J. G. H. Lyons. There had been no Lyons introduced to him in the mess. Perhaps he was on leave. Perhaps he had flu with Trent and was down at the base. The spot of fear in his heart trembled slightly and he knew suddenly where J. G. H. Lyons was. He was dead! Somewhere out in the snow, miles across the line, J. G. H. Lyons slept in a shattered cockpit.