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.
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