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happily as she gathered the beautiful blond girl into her arms. The two girls embraced tightly as the moon shone down on the gathering throngs of proud gay people.

M ISS B ARNARD’S U NIT
    P auline Peel’s heart pounded as the train pulled into Victoria Station. She peered through her compartment window at the throngs of people hurrying to and fro. There were uniformed porters, women up for a day of shopping, men from the City in their silk bowlers, but most of all soldiers—soldiers of every rank and from every branch of service, having tea at the Lyons corner house, saying goodbye to their sweethearts and mothers, some even sleeping, their heads pillowed on their kit bags, as they waited for the trains that would take them to the boats that awaited them in the harbor, and from there to the front.
    â€œAnd soon I’ll be there too!” Pauline thought to herself. Her eyes glowed with excitement in her thin face as she thought about the field hospital where she would soon be stationed, the ambulances, the wounded soldiers—the work that would give her a new purpose in life. For a moment, she caught sight of her reflection in the train window. Her face wasn’t what one would call pretty, that Pauline knew. But it was a face that promised forthrightness and loyalty, and perhaps, if stirred by the right person, even passion. Yes, Pauline decided, it was a good face.
    â€œExcuse me, if you please,” a haughty voice interrupted her reverie. The train had come to a stop and the others in her compartment were waiting to get off. A girl with her golden curls modishly dressed under a small hat pushed past her and twitched the compartment door open. Pauline had noticed the girl when she boarded the train at Rotherhithe. She was about Pauline’s age, but otherwise the two were complete opposites. This girl was dressed in the height of fashion, her skirt several daring inches above her ankles, while Pauline’s tweeds looked dowdy and countrified. Then there was the girl’s bored, discontented expression, while Pauline gazed at everyone about her with eager friendliness.
    â€œI’m glad I’m not her,” thought Pauline as the golden-haired girl disappeared from view. The girl was probably a society debutante, attending parties and dances while the fate of Europe was being decided.
    â€œTake your bags, miss?” A porter paused beside her.
    â€œNo—but can you tell me where I might find the Englishwomen’s Volunteer Unit attached to the French Army?”
    â€œRound the corner, beside the sweetshop, miss,” said the porter, pointing. “Are you an ambulance driver then?” he called after her as she hurried away, and Pauline replied over her shoulder, “I hope to be!”
    She felt bewildered and a little lost as she pushed her way through the crowd, her eyes searching for the Englishwomen Volunteers. She had been to London only twice before, both times with her father, Paul Peel. But Mr. Peel was headmaster of St. Bart’s, and could not leave the school during the end-of-term match. “Sometimes I think the fate of Europe will be decided on the playing fields of England,” he had told her solemnly before she departed. “And I must do my little all to prepare these boys.”
    Pauline knew that her father secretly wished she were a boy, someone who could lead men into battle, and she felt his disappointment keenly. Her mother had perished while bringing Pauline into the world, and there had been no feminine presence to counter her father’s virile influence. Pauline had been raised at St. Bart’s, playing rugger and football with her father’s students as if she were one of the lads, and it had come as a great shock to realize that this war was a game from which she was excluded.
    She had been in a black despair until her old governess had written to her about the Englishwomen’s Volunteer Unit. “They need girls like