CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST NIGHT IN CAMP
"Why did I leave my little back-room in Bloomsbury?"—VICTORIAN SONG.
Transformation scene.
From a London office to a Land Girls' Camp in Mid-Wales. From a cramped, sixth-story flat looking down on slums to that big light hut set among the woods that peeped a green "welcome" in at the many windows.
Every window was wide open on that first evening when Elizabeth and I got down to the camp.
Our first impressions of it? Well! I can only say we were not "out" to be encouraged, or to like anything at all at that moment! Tired, stiff from our journey, awkward in our unfamiliar uniform and heavy boots, we followed the young forewoman who'd met us at the tiny station called "Careg," and had piloted us up and down what seemed interminable miles of lanes to this hut.
A queer, surprisingly ugly place, this long bare building! Corrugated iron without, matchboarding within, with bare floors, trestle tables, and kitchen-chairs. It had been intended for a parish hall for meetings and sales of work; but the platform had been taken away, and the whole building turned into a barracks for girl-workers. Land Army slouch hats and brown raincoats hung from the pegs, gay-coloured prints were pinned upon the unvarnished walls, and flowers stood about in glass jam-jars.
The place resounded with laughter and talk. It was clustered with Camp-ites, who wore the same rig as our own. We still felt as if we were in fancy-dress. But these other light smocks and laced-up leggings and hobnailed boots all bore the signs of honest wear and tear from the work for which they were designed.
These girls had "worked themselves and their clothes in" to the new job. On that first evening they looked to us a race apart. They made me feel a nervous and apologetic weed! They were a bewildering crowd.
"Now, you girls! Make a bit of room at this end of the table," ordered the forewoman cheerily. "Here are the two new workers for the training depot. They're to live here."