“No, I’ll be honest,” she added laughingly, in answer to the look of amazed inquiry on the faces of her companions, “and ’fess’ that I didn’t have the pleasure of drilling in public, for I’m a raw recruit as yet. We recruits go through our manual of arms at one of the New York armories, drilled by a regular army sergeant. Oh, I’ve been in training some time, for you know I took out my chauffeur’s and mechanician’s State licenses last winter.
“One has to own her car at this sort of government work,”—Grace’s voice became inflated with importance,—“and be able to make her own repairs on the road if necessary. But isn’t my new car a Jim Dandy?” she asked, glancing with keen pride at the big gray motor, purring contentedly at the curb. “It was a belated Christmas gift from grandmother.
“But I tell you what, girls,” she rattled on, “I’ve been put through the paces all right, but I’ve passed my exams with flying colors. Phew! wasn’t the physical exam stiff!—before a regular high official of the army medical corps. I was inoculated for typhoid, and for paratyphoid. I’ll secretly confess that I don’t know what the last word means. Yes, and I took the oath of allegiance to the United States Government, administered by another army swell,—and that’s where my Pioneer work proved O. K. And then we had the First Aid course, too, at St. Luke’s. The head nurse, who gave us special lessons in bandaging, said I was A No. 1; and in wigwagging, oh, I did the two-flag business just dandy.”
“But what is your special work?” asked Nathalie, for the two girls were somewhat surprised and bewildered by all these high-sounding, official-like terms. To be sure, Grace had long been known as an expert driver, but she had never shown her efficiency in any way but by giving the girls joy-rides once in a while; yes, and once she had driven her father to New York.
But war work, thought Nathalie, for this aristocratic-looking, sweet-faced young girl, whose eyes gleamed merrily at you from under the peaked army cap—with its blue band and the insignia of the Corps, a tire surmounted by Mercury’s wings—set so jauntily on the fluffy hair. To be sure the slim, trim figure in the army jacket, short skirt over trousers, and high boots did have a warlike aspect, but it was altogether too girlish and charming to be suggestive of anything but a toy soldier, like one of the tiny painted tin things that Nathalie used to play with when a wee tot.
“Do? Why, I am a military chauffeur,” returned Grace patronizingly, “and in the business of war-relief work for the Government. At present I’m to act as chauffeur to one of our four lieutenants, Miss Gladys Merrill. Oh, she’s a dear! I have to drive her all over the city when she is engaged on some Government errand. You should see me studying the police maps, and then you would know what I do. Sometimes we are called to transport some of the army officers from the railroad station to the ferry, or to headquarters. Then we do errands for the Red Cross, too.
“Why, the other day I helped to carry a lot of knitted things down on the pier, to be packed in a ship bound for the other side; they were for the soldiers at the front. We do work for the National Defense, and for the Board of Exemption. I’m doing my ‘bit,’ even if it is a wee one, towards winning the war,” ended the girl, with a note of satisfaction in her voice.
“O dear, but wouldn’t I like to drive an ambulance in France! But I’ve got to be twenty-one to do that sort of work,”—the girl sighed. “But did I tell you that brother Fred is doing American Field Service? I had a letter from him yesterday, and he said that he and a lot of American boys have established a little encampment of ambulances not far from the front-line trench. They live in what was once a château belonging to Count Somebody or Another, but now it is nothing but a shell.
“Oh, Fred thinks it is glorious fun,” cried the girl, with sparkling eyes. “He has to answer roll-call at eight in the morning, and then he eats his breakfast at a little café near. He has just black bread,—think of that, coffee, and, yes, sometimes he has an egg. Then he has to drill, clean his car, and—oh, but he says it’s a great sight to see the aëroplanes constantly flying over his head, like great monsters of the air. And sometimes he goes wild with excitement when he sees an aërial battle between a Boche and a French airman.
“Yes, he declares it is ‘some’ life over there,” animatedly continued Grace, “for even his rest periods are thrilling, for they have to dodge shells, and sometimes they burst over one’s head. Several times he thought he was done for. And at night the road near the château is packed with hundreds of marching guns, trucks of ammunition, and war supplies and cavalry, all on their way to the front.