That concert began early, in order to finish early. We should never have time to get back from work, have our tea, and change into civilian clothes before we set out again for the hospital—particularly the gang of timber-workers, who were now in the woods, two miles beyond the training farm. And it wouldn't look nice to have them in uniform and the farm-girls out of it. We must be all alike, decided Miss Easton, and smarten up our working kit by getting into a clean smock and giving our boots an extra polish.
Grumbling broke out—what camp in either the women's or the men's armies could go on without its grouse? But the girls agreed to lump it, as it had to be.
"After all, the boys'll have to be in their everlasting hospital blue, with those chronic red ties o' theirs that I'm getting fair fed up with the sight of, so we'll be fellow-sufferers in distress," pronounced Vic cheerfully as she swallowed her tea, left the table, and then got to work on another pair of brogues.
"After you with that brown boot-polish, young Mop"—to Elizabeth—"and when you've finished with the glass, Peggy, p'raps you'll find me a clean handkerchief, the thieves in this place having pinched the lot of mine. Ho! Why do I talk in this unfemin-nine style? Most unwomanly I call it. Effects of this here life in camp," she rattled on good-humouredly.
"I shall have to mind myself presently, before that refined pal of Celery-face's. Her what's going to play the piano. She didn't half give me a nasty look in the chemist's. Sure she thinks I'm no lady. Now what's her little game? Is she trying to get off with the Captain, Celery-face?"
I said a trifle bitterly:
"If she likes people, she does not have to 'try' for them."
"Ah, is she one o' those lucky ones," said Vic, cheerfully shining her brogues. "Well, I'm going to watch the young lady tonight, and see what she makes of——"
"Hurry up, you girls!" urged Miss Easton from the porch. "The concert starts at a quarter to. It's time we were off!"
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