"Cadet Daventry, you're for K5; Cadet Kaye, G4. Mornin'."
"So we separate for the time being, George," remarked Derek, as the twain left the building. "Good luck, old man. See you at lunch, I hope."
The finding of K5, signifying the fifth hangar in K lines, afforded no difficulty. Already the machine was out, four or five mechanics being busily engaged in tuning-up the engine and testing the controls under the observant eye of a young officer, who, apparently bored stiff with the whole performance, was smoking a cigarette and fondling a terrier pup—but one of the small army of mascots maintained by the Averleigh T.D.S.
Lieutenant Rippondene, Derek's instructor, was in appearance an overgrown schoolboy. As a matter of fact he was just twenty, and had been flying at the front for more than two years, until a piece of shrapnel had put a temporary stop to his activities in strafing the Boche. Until he could prevail upon a normally adamant Medical Board to allow him to cross the Channel again, he was being employed as flight-instructor to the quirks of Averleigh Flying School.
He was full-faced, and showed a decided tendency towards corpulence. In his flying-helmet and leather coat he strongly resembled a jovial friar, and it would have been difficult to realize that those podgy hands were capable of keeping a shrapnel-torn "'bus" under absolute control. On one occasion he had been beset by five Huns, yet, according to the testimony of his observer, "the old merchant was grinning from ear to ear during the whole strafe".
"Hop in!" was the Lieutenant's greeting, much in the manner of a motorist offering a youngster a lift on the road.
Derek obeyed, clambering into the fuselage of the double-seater "Dromedary" by means of metal-shod niches in the side of the khaki-painted body.
The instructor, throwing aside quite two-thirds of the original length of the cigarette, followed, and, dropping into his seat like a crab retiring to its lair, drew on a pair of gauntlets.
"Right-o!" he continued. "Tell 'em to swing her."
"Contact, sir—contact off," was the continued slogan of the air mechanic, as he strove to swing the large two-bladed propeller, or "prop." as it is invariably termed in the R.A.F.