A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping

The month was August, and August at its worst, a month of glare and dust, and an atmosphere more trying to the temper than all the insolent bluster of a bragging March.

Mr. Carrington, in his shirt sleeves, and white linen sun-hat crammed down over his eyes, stood under the acacia-tree at his garden gate, chatting to the Reverend Peter Burt, Curate of Cossington, who had tramped three miles to visit some of the sick people on the farm. Mr. Burt was rather a shy little man, very much in earnest, and very much convinced of the responsibility of his position.