"confinement to camp" was a punishment for crime. So we compromised by
strolling the city streets with our military hats and boots, with the
army greatcoats seeking to hide the blue hideousness of our dungarees.
Some of us sought to be unconscious of the foot or two of blue cloth
showing beneath the greatcoat, and these were times when we envied the
little chap enveloped in a greatcoat that hung down as low as his
boots. We received at this time the nickname "Keystone soldiers," some
genial ass conceiving that we looked as funny as the Keystone police.
These greatcoats were a bit out of place on a day that was over a
hundred in the shade, and they did not look exactly the thing at a
dainty tea-table in a swell cafe, but we clung to those greatcoats as
our only salvation, for they _did_ hide the blue horror beneath. I
should have explained that our civilian clothes had been taken from us,
and we were forbidden, under severe penalty, to wear any but regulation
dress. Nevertheless, the lucky dogs who had relatives near by would
take the risk and borrow a cousin's rig-out, but we hated them as mean
dogs, feeling they were taking an unfair advantage; and, if we got a
chance, we would, by innuendo, hint to the lady in the case that these
fellows did so much dixie-cleaning that their dungarees were too stiff
to wear!

Nearing the close of a long, sunny Australian day--the air soft, warm,
and sweet, and the sky suffused with a lovely pink. It was
visiting-day--Friday. In the camp, rows of figures in blue dungarees
and white hats were marching round and round the drill-ground, turning
from left to right, forming fours, then back to two deep, and, so on
and so on. Out across the flat ground between the camp and the
railway-station, coming steadily toward the camp, was a very straggly
line of white figures. As they came closer, one saw they were women
and girls, fresh and dainty in summer frocks and hats, all carrying big