he is the only one of us who has any knowledge of soldiering at all, so
we chose him.

The women were a difficulty at first. They insisted on regarding us as
a joke, and used to repeat the absurd witticism of the street boys.
I heard Janet say "Methusaleers" one day. She denied it, but I am
perfectly certain she did not say "Fusiliers," My wife fussed about dry
socks and wanted me to take my umbrella on a route march one wet Sunday.

Every other member of the corps had similar experiences. It was Tompkins
who hit on a way of dealing satisfactorily with the women. Tompkins is
our local doctor. He stays in Ballyhaine all day long when the rest
of us go up to town, so he naturally knows a good deal about women. He
enrolled them in a volunteer ambulance brigade, and after that they
were just as keen as any of us. We did the thing handsomely for them. We
bought six stretchers, a small motor ambulance waggon, and some miles
of bandages. Janet and Cotter's youngest girl carried one of the
stretchers. I should not like to say that my wife actually hoped I
should be wounded, but I think she would have liked the chance of
bandaging any other man in the corps. The rest of the women felt as she
did.

The drawback to Ballyhaine as a centre of military activity is the
difficulty of finding a place for practising field manoeuvres. There is
the golf links, of course, but we got tired of marching round and round
the golf links, and we did not want to dig trenches there. Haines, who
does not play golf, drew up a plan of trench digging which would have
ruined the golf links for years. But we would not have that. Nor could
we dig in each other's gardens, or practise advancing over open country
in skirmishing order when there was no open country. The whole district
is a network of high walls with broken glass on top of them, a form of
defence rendered necessary by the attacks of small boys on our fruit
trees.

Fortunately, we had the sea beach. The strand--there are three miles of
it--is one of the glories of Ballyhaine. We did most of our manoeuvring
there and dug our trenches there. Haines was opposed to this plan at
first.

"If the Germans come at all," said Cotter, "they'll come from the sea.
They must, this being an island."

"Of course," said Haines.

"Then," said Cotter, "the beach is the place where we shall have to meet
them, and the strand is where our trenches ought to be."

There was no answering that argument. Even Ha