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colour in her cheeks, her parted lips, her eyes bright and sparkling. He withdrew his glance quickly, because of the crowd about them. He had not known before that she was beautiful.
    “I don’t know,” he said casually. “Somewhere in the woods.”
    “Oh.” She thought for a minute. “Will there be a moon?”
    Marshall said: “Yes, if it’s a fine night. The moon rises about two o’clock.”
    She said: “I think it will be fine. Three-tenths cloud or something. We got the message in this morning.”
    There was a little pause; slowly the animation died out of her face. “It’ll be awfully interesting,” she said. Queerly, itseemed to Marshall that she was disappointed about something, or depressed. Perhaps her boy friend was giving her the run around. If that were so, it was a shame; she was a nice kid.
    “I didn’t forget about that bit of pike,” he said kindly. “I told them in the kitchen, and I told them to give Ma Stevens a bit, too.”
    She said: “You’re sure you can spare it?”
    He said: “Lady, I eats hearty, but not eleven and a quarter pounds.”
    She laughed. “I suppose not.”
    He moved away from her, though he would rather have stayed talking to her and have taken her in to lunch, in the hope of seeing her look again as she had looked when he was telling her about the badger. He had lived in a mess too long to risk being seen to talk much with one W.A.A.F. officer. In a society predominantly masculine with just a few young women, gossip ran rife; Marshall had caused embarrassment to too many young men from time to time to risk himself as target. He went in to lunch with Pat Johnson, choosing strategically a seat that gave him a view of Section Officer Robertson eating pike, twenty feet away.
    He was relieved to notice that she ate it all, in happy distinction to Mr. Johnson, who took one mouthful, put it out again, said a rude word, and went and fetched himself a plate of beef.
    Marshall watched Section Officer Robertson covertly all through the meal, timing the progress of his lunch to synchronise with hers while talking to Humphries about accelerated take-offs. He followed her out into the ante-room for coffee. He asked her how she had liked the pike.
    “I liked it,” she replied. “It’s different to most other fish.”
    “So Pat thought,” he said. “He told the maid to give it to the cat, if the cat would have it.”
    “What a shame!”
    “I’ll go out this afternoon and try and get another,” Marshall said.
    She turned to him. “Mr. Marshall, do let me know what happens about your badger. You must be awfully well in with the country people here, to get a chance like that.”
    He shook his head. “This chap sells motors in Great Portland Street.”
    She wrinkled up her forehead in perplexity. “Sells motors? But you have to know the country frightfully well to find a badger.”
    “I know that.” He paused. “Anyway, it should be rather fun.”
    It was the second time that he had spoken to her about fun at Hartley aerodrome. She dropped her eyes. “Tell me about it when you come back,” she said quietly.
    “Okay,” he said. “I’ll give you all the lowdown on the sordid side of country life, lunch time to-morrow.”
    She took her coffee and the
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, and crossed the room to a chair. Presently she got up, and went out to the signals office, and sat down at her bare deal table garnished with messages and signal forms in bulldog clips.
    She was deeply disappointed. She was a country girl from the North Riding; her father was an auctioneer in Thirsk. Her uncle was rector of Thistleton, a little village in the hills near Helmsley; she knew country matters very well. She had a considerable knowledge of foxes; she had followed the hunt on various farm ponies, and she had crept out several times into the woods to stalk a vixen playing with her cubs before the earth; for one of these expeditions she had a blurred Brownie photograph to show. In all her