The days are past when the ranks of the old flying-corps were filled by and rapidly depleted of hundreds of hastily-trained pilots--specimens of the youth and manhood of the empire who were passed through the schools in desperate haste and pitted against the scientific but undoubtedly physically-inferior German flyers. Now the R.A.F. trains its "quirks" deliberately and methodically. While on the one hand there is no dallying, there is on the other no injudicious haste, and before a cadet takes his wings he must thoroughly master the intricacies of a 'plane while the huge monster lies pinned to the earth. In due course, provided the most critical of instructors are satisfied, the budding flying-man develops into a flight-cadet and finally emerges, trained and provided with the best machines that money and brains are capable of producing, to help to gain the mastery of the air. Derek Daventry had now entered into the flight-cadet stage, and on the morning following his arrival at Averleigh T.D.S. he found himself entering upon a new and highly-interesting phase of his career--the actual experience of flight. "I'll give you a hand," he said, addressing the youth with the refractory puttee. "We'll lash the job up somehow. After all there's a medical inspection after parade, so the jolly old thing'll have to come off again. The main business is to fall in before the parade starts." With Derek's assistance Flight-Cadet John Kaye contrived to encase his leg in the long strip of khaki cloth. True, there were projecting folds and creases that might cause sarcastic comment from his flight-inspecting officer, but the fact remained that his attendance on parade was an accomplished fact. The cadets and airmen had fallen in in their respective "Flights"--R.A.F. equivalent to platoon--when the bell gave out its four double clangs, for at Averleigh they kept ship's time, possibly as a sop to the naval element absorbed from the old R.N.A.S. The Sergeant-Major, having satisfied himself as to the dressing and alignment, advanced to within a few paces of the Adjutant, the latter a youth who was within a few months of attaining his twenty-first birthday, and on whom weighed the responsibility of a thousand odd men. Round-faced and boyish in appearance, he already sported three metal bars upon his sleeve--the only outward and visible signs of three wounds received in action with the Huns in Flanders and on the Somme. The Sergeant-Major saluted. The soft south-westerly breeze carried away the sound of his voice from the stiffly-motionless ranks. The salute was returned, then-- "Parade--stand at--ease! Fall in the officers!" Derek, standing by the side of his chum Kaye in the front rank of No. 4 Flight, was conscious of the approach of his Flight-Commander. Along the face of the Flight the Captain passed, swiftly "overhauling" the appearance of every cadet. Yet, somehow, Kaye's delinquency in the matter of the absent tunic button was passed unrebuked.