Derek, with the jagged ends of a compound fractured bone threatening to push through the skin, was compelled to admit that he had. Apart from the acute pain, it was galling to realize that, after coming through a beautiful crash and spending the best part of the day and night under machine-gun fire in a shell-hole with nothing worse than a slight flesh-wound in the forehead, it was his very hard luck to be crocked up by a mere back-fire, especially as he had been careless enough to grasp the handle in the wrong way. "Rotten night's work," grumbled the driver, as he liberally dosed his wound with iodine. "Where's that there Corporal, sir? Good Lord, he's copped it, too!" He bent over the unfortunate N.C.O. "Dead as mutton," he announced nonchalantly. There was no surprise in his tone. Three years of living cheek by jowl with sudden death in all sorts of terrible forms had blunted his feelings. "Poor bloke! And it might have been a Blighty for him, too--same as me. 'Ere, mate!" A man bending under the weight of a coil of wire was slouching past. At the hail he threw his burden down, glad of the opportunity to ease his aching shoulders. "What's up?" he asked. The driver explained. "Fat lot you knows about an engine," remarked the new-corner. "That's why they put you in the M.T. And I've been driving motor-lorries all over Yorkshire and Lancashire these ten years. There's not a blinking motor that I can't master, and yet they shove me in the bloomin', foot-slogging infantry. Chronic, I calls it." "Don't want to hear about your qualifications," broke in the driver with acerbity. "What I want is a practical demonstration." Then realizing that it was hardly the style to adopt when a favour was required he added: "'Course it was rough luck on you, mate; but I can't help it, can I? Now be a sport and get the old mule a-going, and I think I can find a whole packet of fags in my greatcoat pocket. Crikey! That was a near 'un," he ejaculated, as a shell burst about a hundred yards away and slightly to the left of the road. "Jerry's putting a lot of stuff over tonight." "Sure you've got the fags?" enquired the newcomer cautiously. The prospect of getting hold of a packet of cigarettes interested him far more than did the Boche shells. Like the poor, German shells were always present; cigarettes were not. "Feel in my pockets," said the driver. "They're yours as soon as you get the blessed engine to fire." The man was about to do so when in the reflected glare of a star-shell he caught sight of the driver's hastily-applied bandage. "By gum, you've been hit, lad!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you say so, instead of offering me fags? Reckon as you'll want 'em more'n me, so here goes." A deft manipulation of throttle and spark, a short rapid jerk of the hitherto refractory cranking-handle, and the engine began throbbing with renewed activity.