"Didn't you hear? You know him, don't you?"
"The little merchant with a mole on the point of his chin? I was yarning with him last night."
"That's the fellow," agreed Kaye. "'Fraid he's crashed for good. Didn't clear the pine-trees, and ripped off the left-hand plane. Came down like a stone, of course, and they've taken him to hospital with a compound fracture of the thigh. Old Biggs is rather cut up about it, because Dixon had a good reputation as a centre-forward. Just the fellow we wanted for the First Eleven."
Biggs—Old Biggs as he was generally called—was the captain of the first footer-team, hence that worthy's regret at losing what promised to be a pillar of strength to the sports club. Biggs was an ex-ranker, who, as a flight-sergeant in the old R.F.C., had performed wondrous and daring feats over the Boche lines. It was reported that he climbed out to the tip of one of the planes of a machine when, owing to extensive damage by gun-fire, it was in danger of losing its stability. And this at 9000 feet, with three Taubes devoting their attention to the disabled British 'bus. And yet, before being granted a commission, Old Briggs had to pass through the cadet training-school like any ordinary quirk.
The afternoon passed only too quickly, the lecture being both instructive and entertaining, and when tea was over the cadets were at liberty to spend the rest of the evening in whatever manner they wished.
It was one of the standing orders at Averleigh that three times a week a large motor-lorry was detailed to take cadets into Rockport, a privilege eagerly seized upon by the quirks.
Punctually at six the huge, khaki-painted vehicle emerged from the garage, and the cadets, after passing inspection, boarded the lorry in a seething mob, swarming over the fastened-up tail-board with the utmost agility, until the lorry was packed with forty odd youngsters.
Away rattled the heavily-laden wagon, followed by a couple of motor-bikes with side-cars, each of which bore three cadets in the side-car and one on the carrier, while a straggling mob of quirks on push-bikes brought up the rear.
Directly the precincts of the aerodrome were left behind, the driver of the lorry was bombarded with frantic appeals to "whack her up". This request was complied with, with alacrity, and, the road being narrow, progress resolved itself into a series of vain attempts on the part of the motor-cycles to pass their lumbering, swaying, big comrade.
It was a distance of eleven miles to Rockport by road, and three miles less by a footpath along the cliffs that eventually cut across some marshes on the south side of Averleigh aerodrome.