• 47 •

CONSTANCE NEVER DID find out how Clarence acquired the extra guns. He must’ve ridden some distance to collect them, because the trip took the better part of an afternoon. Whether they were requisitioned from a military depot or a farmer up the road was, she decided, not her concern. They were ordinary rifles like any country-dweller might keep on hand.

Neither had she had any trouble convincing Clarence to fetch them. He’d been raised among sisters and was accustomed to women telling him what to do. Besides, he showed a fraternal regard for the women’s camp and its inhabitants.

“Decisions are going to be made very quickly in the next few weeks,” Constance said when she put the idea before him. “Your own sergeant doesn’t think we’ve done anything here but entertain ourselves. I’d like to show him otherwise.”

“My sergeant doesn’t think, period,” Clarence said, in the tradition of privates everywhere who love to complain about their commanders but would nonetheless follow them straight into the hell of war.

“Then let’s finish our training,” Constance said, “and hold proper graduation exercises.”

“Seems only fair,” Clarence said, affably, and went off in search of weaponry.

As soon as she had the guns in hand, so to speak, Constance announced her plans to the campers. She kept them in the mess hall after dinner on a Tuesday evening to explain the last-minute addition of new courses on manual combat and marksmanship, a week before graduation.

The announcement came as a shock to the campers, who thought that the war had granted them a reprieve and their final week would be more like a holiday. Plenty of them raised objections to the militaristic leanings of the new program.

“I was told we weren’t to be turned into Amazonians,” complained Liddy Powell from a table in the back.

“I hardly imagine we’ll be called upon to arm ourselves in Connecticut,” said Ginny Field.

“Although I wouldn’t mind knowing how to throw a man down on the ground,” added Tizzy Spotwood.

“But just who are you to teach us?” shouted Liddy.

Constance thought those were reasonable questions and didn’t mind answering them. “A rifle is nothing but wood and metal. It won’t turn you into an Amazon. But if you don’t want to handle it, you don’t have to. You’re all welcome to learn how to throw a man down on the ground, or how to break free from a captor. It could be of considerable value to the girls going to France, but you might find a use for it in Connecticut, too. Clarence and Hack have volunteered to play the part of the attackers, as long as you go easy on them. And you’re right to ask how I would know.”

She didn’t even pause before she said it. Beulah was right — she’d been ill-served by the mountain of shame and regret she’d shouldered since the election. What good had it done her? “I was a deputy sheriff in Hackensack. I carried a revolver, and I tackled criminals and put them into handcuffs, just like any other deputy.”

That brought an excited murmur from the crowd. One girl said, “I heard something about a lady sheriff who got fired last year.”

“That was me,” Constance said. “The new sheriff said he couldn’t think of anything for a woman to do at the jail.”

There wasn’t a camper in the mess hall who agreed with that sentiment. Every single girl signed on for rifle training, even the reluctant ones.

The course began promptly at eight o’clock the following morning: not a minute could be wasted. The grass had grown long, and the dew was considerable, so that most girls rolled up their waistbands to raise their hemlines. Constance didn’t object, and in fact imagined that over in France, the women must be making all manner of impromptu adjustments to their uniforms.

She’d conscripted Sarah Middlebrook as her assistant. The two of them took the first class and showed them how to stand with a rifle, how to check it for ammunition, and how to put a target in their sights. There would be no long nights in the woods rehearsing with wooden substitutes. These girls had to be taught quickly, out of necessity, which was exactly how Constance herself had learned to shoot, the first time Sheriff Heath put a police revolver in her hand. She flinched a little at the memory — what promise that moment had held! — but there was no time for reminiscing. Her class was ready to take aim.

“I don’t know when I’ll ever need to do this,” said Liddy Powell, when Constance put the rifle in her hands, “but this might be the last time anyone offers to teach me.”

She hit her target on the first try, gave a little yelp of victory, and went right back into line to take another turn.

So it transpired that in their last week of camp, in every spare moment, a regiment of young women took part in the training that had previously only been offered to a few of their number, in secret, late at night. Marching practice was cancelled, as were calisthenics. Instead they rehearsed choke-holds and ground tackles. Target practice took place four times a day, with twenty girls at a time aiming at bottles on fence posts near the edge of the woods.

There was simply nothing more glorious than to see what these girls could do, if they were allowed to be a little rough-and-tumble. After a month at camp, their inhibitions and pretenses had fallen away. The uniforms had an effect, of course: everyone was equal in drab khaki, and the differences between them faded away.

As Constance walked among them on the training field, adjusting their stances, and checking that they had the target in their sights, she couldn’t help but feel, in some small measure, what it must mean to command a regiment. These girls were hers. They trusted her, and they counted on her to show them what they needed to know.

Constance had the peculiar sensation, during that week, of knowing already that she ought to pack away a memory of those days when they were all together, in the pale lemony sunlight of early April, their feet planted firmly in the earth and their eyes squinted carefully into the rifles’ sights, with a round going off and echoing around the camp, to be greeted by cheers and applause from all sides. If there was anything in the world she wanted, it was this. She only wished she knew how to hold on to it.