I'm with you," said I, "it's all the same to me so long as I'm
there for the show."

I thoroughly enjoyed that week-end and, of course, joined the Corps. In
July of that year we had great fun in the long summer camp at Pirbright.

Work was varied, sometimes we rode out with the regiments stationed at
Bisley on their field days and looked after any casualties. (We had a
horse ambulance in those days which followed on these occasions and was
regarded as rather a dud job.) Other days some were detailed for work at
the camp hospital near by to help the R.A.M.C. men, others to exercise
the horses, clean the officers' boots and belts, etc., and, added to
these duties, was all the everyday work of the camp, the grooming and
watering of the horses, etc. Each one groomed her own mount, but in some
cases one was shared between two girls. "Grooming time is the only time
when I appreciate having half a horse," one of these remarked cheerily
to me. That hissing noise so beloved of grooms is extraordinarily hard
to acquire--personally, I needed all the breath I had to cope at all!

The afternoons were spent doing stretcher drill: having lectures on
First Aid and Nursing from a R.A.M.C. Sergeant-Major, and, when it was
very hot, enjoying a splash in the tarpaulin-lined swimming bath the
soldiers had kindly made for us. Rides usually took place in the
evenings, and when bedtime came the weary troopers were only too ready
to turn in! Our beds were on the floor and of the "biscuit" variety,
being three square _paillasse_ arrangements looking like giant
reproductions of the now too well known army "tooth breakers." We had
brown army blankets, and it was no uncommon thing to find black earth
beetles and earwigs crawling among them! After months of active service
these details appear small, but in the summer of 1914 they were real
terrors. Before leaving the tents in the morning each "biscuit" had to
be neatly piled on the other and all the blankets folded, and then we
had to sally forth to learn the orders of the day, who was to be orderly
to our two officers, who was to water the horses, etc., etc., and by the
time it was eight a.m. we had already done a hard day's work.

One particular day stands out in my memory as being a specially
strenuous one. The morning's work was over, and the afternoon was set
aside for practising for the yearly sports. The rescue race was by far
the most thrilling, its object being to save anyone from the ene