The numbers of volunteers for whom work has been found
since the outbreak of the war has gone up steadily. Kent, which is so often in the vanguard of any new form of national effort or experiment, heads the list with 1,500, as against Hampshire's 635. A sense of solidarity as well as a sense of competition is growing up among the several country detach- ments of this land army. Kent has a county badge for courage under fire. How diverse in origin are those who have earned that honour, those girls who have continued to hoe or milk while the bombs whistled or the machine-gun bullets spattered upon the byre roofs! A librarian, a cook, two shop-assistants, a school-girl of the age of seventeen, a dressmaker, a nurse and a dramatic student. There they are in their breeches and their green jerseys scattered in their thousands across the fields of England and giving us the food which Hitler seeks to drown and burn.
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