Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/157

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HEADQUARTERS
127


ing can be as deadly as bullets. The colonel remained placid.

“When you work as hard as these boys do, you get awfully healthy, and you need lots of food. Besides, when you're going into battle you don't worry much about your liver.”

Here—and in this respect the camp may be taken as conformable with the ordinary cantonment—the Y. M. C. A. had no monopoly of recreation work. There were two other huts, one furnished by the government, the other endowed by individuals.

There was a garden about this last where two young women, gloved and wearing rough straw hats, toiled with rake and hoe. We paused and, following the colonel's lead, chatted for some moments about their potatoes and beans and cabbages. As we walked on the colonel laughed a little.

"You know that very handsome young girl with the rake is Lady So and So. The war is changing things rather, don't you think?"

That admitted no dispute. As I have indicated, its truth is everywhere impressed upon one. The war is changing things rather. Lady So and So has forgotten the interval that formerly gaped between her and Tommy So and So. The hard