"We drag these out, d'you see," explained Vic. "Lay 'em in a line along the wall here. Here's two for you—here's your blankets. I'll tuck you up in your little byes. Sleep like tops here, see if you don't."
I was amazed to find how cosily I curled up, presently on that mattress without sheets or pillows, set on the floor near that open window through which the air swept sweet with the breath of growing things. Vic tucked the khaki blankets round me with a gesture that I hadn't seen so near me since I lost my mother.
"Sleep well," she said comfortably. "Dream of 'him'!"
And it was into the profoundest sleep that I'd known since Harry sailed that I presently sank.
My last waking thoughts were a jumble of the train journey, the unfamiliar country, the laughing, rosy faces of the Land Girls. Then clearly there stood out, in front of all, the face of that strange young man who had walked into the camp, looking as if he were searching for somebody. That searching, disconcerting stare of his at me—why at me?—that brusque demand: "How long d'you imagine you'll stick this?" Why did he say that to me?
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST JOB
"Something attempted, something done."—LONGFELLOW.
Next morning at two o'clock—or such the unearthly hour seemed to me—I was awakened by a resonant girlish voice.
"Tumble up! It's late! I left you girls till the last minute. You were so dead asleep you never heard a sound. Up with you!"