"Now if I could get hold of a mate to start her up," he continued ruminatingly, "I'd soon drive the pair o' us to the dressing-station."
"I'll have a shot at it," volunteered Derek, and grasping the handle he swung it vigorously.
The next instant he was nursing a broken arm.
CHAPTER XVII
Turned Down
"Always said she was a mule, sir," exclaimed the driver. "Either she won't fire or else she back-fires when you don't expect it. Did you cop it, sir?"
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!"