Page:Our Girls.pdf/36

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24
OUR GIRLS

middle of the streets are lines of hooded and darkened lamps, at long and unequal intervals. But the streets here are not for traffic. Within this zone there is hardly a sound or sign of motion. The moon is now shining, and in the distance, under its slow-growing light, we see the shadowy figures of women workers in their khaki gowns and caps, moving noiselessly about like nuns. We could almost imagine that, out of the noise and tumult, the thud and roar of the forges behind us, with their tall chimneys showing black against the steel-grey sky, we have passed into the calm rest and silent atmosphere of some open-air convent.

A Zeppelin might drop a bomb on this noiseless place without doing much mischief. But what of the peril within itself, and the courage required to work in it? We walk along our causeway until we come to one of the detached wooden huts. The door is open (for fresh air is wanted), and electric light is streaming out of it. A dozen women are sitting within at two