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stuck in the mud getting shelled tokingdom-come by someone you couldn’t even see, was it, sir?” the sergeant persisted. “I mean, at least you blokes were out in the open. More of a duel, like.” The sergeant dropped a duster onto the linoleum and worked it with his foot, removing a couple of faint prints. He should really have left it for the defaulters to do, but he hated looking at smudged linoleum. “I read somewhere that your average RFC pilot lasted three weeks, sir,” he said. “Three weeks!” He shook his head.
    â€œOh, I knew a chap who lasted two years,” Kellaway said. The sergeant smiled politely but Kellaway could tell that he was disappointed. “On the other hand the new boys usually got knocked down pretty swiftly,” he added. A runner emerged from the fog. Kellaway opened the door and waved. “My goodness, Barton’s absolutely covered in mud …” He went out and counted the gasping runners as they finished their first lap and began their second; waited for a while; came in and shut the door. “Two missing,” he said. “Maybe they’ve got cramp.”
    â€œI’ve seen that tree before,” said Cattermole.
    Stickwell stopped, and looked at the twisted trunk climbing into the fog. “Don’t be preposterous, Moggy,” he said coldly.
    Cattermole went over and touched it. “Definitely the same tree,” he called back. “I’d know it anywhere.”
    â€œImpossible. We’ve never been in this field before. You’re imagining things.”
    â€œSame tree,” Cattermole insisted. “You know what that means, don’t you?” He walked back to Stickwell.
    â€œI never trusted that bloody silly path in that sodding great wood,” Stickwell muttered savagely. “Damn thing went round and round like a drunken corkscrew.”
    â€œTalk sense, Sticky. You can’t have a drunken corkscrew, for Christ’s sake. It’s not possible.”
    Stickwell glared. “All right, then. All right. Since you’re the expert, you pick a route. Go on.”
    Cattermole sighed, and looked unhappily at the wandering gray walls of damp and cold that blotted out all landmarks except the twisted trunk. “There’s only one way out of this,” he said. “Dead reckoning.” He tapped his wristwatch. “Point the hour hand at thesun, bisect the angle between that and twelve o’clock, and you’ve got true north.”
    Stickwell wiped moisture from his face. “Where did you learn that?”
    â€œBoy Scouts. I was nearly a patrol leader.”
    â€œNearly? What went wrong?”
    â€œI’d rather not say, if you don’t mind.”
    â€œOh, oh, oh.”
    â€œWhere’s the sun?” Cattermole asked, raising his wrist.
    The fog had a slightly more luminous quality in one area. “Over there,” Stickwell said. He waved his arm through a wide arc.
    Cattermole shuffled about until the hour hand was pointing in that general direction. “Bisect the angle …” he muttered, and carefully pointed with his right hand over his left shoulder. “If that’s north, then the airfield must be …” He looked inquiringly.
    â€œSouth,” Stickwell said confidently. “Main gate’s on the north side, isn’t it?”
    â€œJesus, I’m cold,” Cattermole said.
    They strode briskly into the fog. “Whatever happens we must stay on this bearing,” Stickwell said. Cattermole, trying to look at his watch and also avoid cowflaps, grunted.
    Within a minute the ground underfoot began to be boggy. They plodded on. Stickwell lost a gym-shoe, sucked off by a particularly greedy bit of bog. They came to a ditch, waded through it, and climbed the bank to find a barbed-wire fence on top. Cattermole went over first and got his shorts hooked while straddling the wire. Stickwell tried to free him and dragged the