"I was going to Ellendorf, but they asked me to stay here a week or so to do some repairs and things."
"Did they? Like their infernal insolence at a time like this. I'm on my way to Ellendorf now to fetch a new machine, and my fool of a mechanic has got drunk, or lost himself, or something. Can you take his place?"
Could I not? Up with him in the bus, what couldn't I do? But I shook my head doubtfully. "I don't know that I could pilot——"
"You wooden-headed idiot, do you suppose I want you to pilot it?" he roared, with a shout of laughter. "I want you as a mechanic, you fool."
"I didn't know, sir. Of course I could test the plane and see that she's all right for you. That was part of my job at Schipphasen, sir; that and trial flights."
"If that's the case, you ought to be in the army. Have you served?"
"No, sir."
"Why not? You've been in the ranks, I can see that."
Up to that point I had done very well, indeed; but then I tripped. "I was a one-year man, sir." The one-year men were a comparatively limited number drawn from the better class; served for only one year instead of three, and had either passed an examination or been at one of the Universities, and mixed freely with the officers.
"What regiment?" was the next question.