Linking arms with Kaye, Derek made his way by means of a duck-board track to the Nissen but wherein the Equipment Officer held court. Smithers was a grey-haired lieutenant of fifty, who, heart and soul devoted to his work, was obsessed by the idea that he was the one and only man who did any real work in the aerodrome. "State your wants briefly," he began, before Derek could say a word. "I'm terribly busy." Derek did so. The Equipment Officer consulted a board festooned with red, blue, and yellow tabs. "A single-seater is all I can manage just at present. Suit? Good. EG 19's the bird. Mornin'." Enquiries at the hangars showed that EG 19 had alighted, owing to slight engine defects, in a field at a distance of two miles from the aerodrome. That occurred three days previously, and the former pilot had been sent away to another squadron. Repairs had been effected, and the machine was now ready for flight. "I'll take a tender," declared Derek. "Come along, old man, and keep me company. You can return in the tender, you know." "Right-o!" agreed Kaye, divesting himself of his flying-coat and tossing it to an orderly. "Just as likely I'll tramp back after I've seen you started." The tender, a covered-in Ford van, was soon forthcoming, and the two chums seated themselves under the canvas tilt. The view was strictly limited to the ground already covered, but this mattered little, since the two pilots had plenty to talk about. The road was typically French. It ran in a straight line as far as the eye could see. In the centre was a strip of _pavé_, interrupted at frequent intervals by shell-holes--some of recent origin, others filled in with material that was subsiding badly. On either side of the _pavé_ was nothing more nor less than a morass, the road being torn up by ceaseless heavy traffic. Bordering the highway on either hand were tall, leafless trees, many of them having been splintered and cut down by shell-fire. Swinging along the mud-covered _pavé_ was a battalion newly arrived from the base--men with shoulders hunched under the weight of their equipment. They were marching at ease--incongruous term. Most of them were smoking. Some were carrying their comrades' rifles in addition to their own. Others were tugging at their new equipment to ease the cutting strain upon their shoulders. Few, very few, were limping. It was not the fault of the army that they limped, for the army takes particular pains to equip the men with good marching-boots. It was the neglect of ordinary precautions that was punishing them. They marched well notwithstanding. Weeks of hard training were apparent in the bearing of the Tommies, as, with tunics unbuttoned at the neck, revealing bronzed throats that blended with the sombre khaki uniforms, they moved along the highway at the regulation pace of three and a half miles an hour.