the side of the road under the
poplars, and Courtenay made a direct line for one from which a chink of
light showed under the tarpaulin and sounds of revelry issued from a
melodeon and a rasping file. Courtenay pulled aside the flap, poked his
head in and found himself blinking in the bright glare of an acetylene
lamp suspended in the middle of a Mechanical Transport traveling
workshop. The walls--tarpaulin over a wooden frame--were closely packed
with an array of tools, and the floor was still more closely packed
with a work-bench, vice and lathe, spare motor parts, boxes, and half a
dozen men. The men were reading newspapers and magazines; one was
manipulating the melodeon, and another at the vice was busy with the
file. The various occupations ceased abruptly as Courtenay poked his
head in and explained briefly who he was and what his troubles were.

"Thought you might be able to do something for me," he concluded, and
before he had finished speaking the man at the vice had laid down his
file and was reaching down a mackintosh from its hook. Courtenay
noticed a sergeant's stripes on his sleeve, and a thick and most
unsoldierly crop of hair on his head plastered back from the brow.

"Why sure," the sergeant said. "If she's anyways fixable, you reckon
her as fixed. Whereabouts is she ditched?"

Ten minutes later Courtenay was listening disconsolately to the list of
damages discovered by the glare of an electric torch and the sergeant's
searching examination.

"It'll take 'most a couple of hours to make any sort of a job," said
the sergeant. "That bust up fork alone--but we'll put her to rights for
you. Let's yank 'er over to the shop."

Courtenay was a good deal put out by this announcement.

"I suppose there's no help for it," he said resignedly, "but it's
dashed awkward. I'm due back at the billets now really, and another two
or three hours late--whew!"

"Carryin' a message, I s'pose," said the sergeant, as together they
seized the cycle and pushed it towards the repair lorry.

"No," said Courtenay, "I was over seeing another officer out this way."
He had an idea from the sergeant's free and easy style of address that
the mackintosh, without any visible badges and with a very visible
spattering of mud, had concealed the fact that he was an officer, and
when he reached the light he casually opened his coat to show his belts
and tunic. But the sergeant made not the slightest difference in his
manner.

"Guess