spot he had chosen as
a take-off, he had no one to thank but himself. A lady further up on a
grey, obviously suffering from spavin, was sailing over like a two-year
old. The last scene was of course a kill, the gentleman in the pink
gloves on the black horse being well to the fore. Altogether it was most
pleasing. Silk hunting "hankies" in yellow and other vivid colours,
ditto with full field, took the place of the now chilly looking
Reckitt's blue, and a Turkey rug on the floor completed the
transformation.

When an early evacuation was not in progress, breakfast was at eight
o'clock, and at 10 minutes to, the whistles went for parade, which was
held in the square just in front of the cars. Those who were late were
put on fatigues without more ado, but in the ordinary way if there were
no delinquents we took it in turns, two every day.

Often when that first whistle went, it found a good many of us still
"complete in flea-bag," and that scramble to get into things and appear
"fully dressed" was an art in itself. An overcoat, muffler, and a pair
of field boots went a long way to complete this illusion. Once however,
Boss, to everyone's pained surprise, said, "Will the troopers kindly
take off their overcoats!" With great reluctance this was done amid
shouts of laughter as three of us stood divested of coats in gaudy
pyjamas.

Fatigue consisted of two things: One--"Tidying up the Camp," which was a
comprehensive term and meant folding up everyone's bonnet covers and
putting them in neat piles near the mess hut, collecting cotton waste
and grease tins, etc., and weeding the garden (a rotten job). The second
was called "Doing the stoke-hole," i.e. cleaning out the ashes from the
huge boiler that heated the bath water, chopping sticks, laying the
fire, and brushing the "hole" up generally.

Opinions were divided as to the merits of those two jobs. Neither was
popular of course, but we could choose. The latter certainly had its
points, because once done it was done for the day, while the former
might be tidy at nine, and yet by 10 o'clock lumps of cotton waste might
be blowing all over the place, tins and bonnet covers once more in
untidy heaps. I often "did the boiler," but I simply hated chopping the
sticks. One day the axe was firmly fixed in a piece of hard wood and I
was vainly hitting it against the block, with eyes tight shut, when I
heard a chuckle from the top of the steps. I looked up and there was a
Tommy lo