Page:Our Girls.pdf/50

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40
OUR GIRLS

body thinks the women working in such places are in fear of their lives he makes a woeful error. Let nobody be afraid to speak of the filling factories, or talk of them as places not proper for women. If that were so we should have to put men into them, for their work is necessary and urgent. But I truly believe that the sense they give of the war being actually with us, not far off in a foreign country, is part of their fascination, their thrill and their power to attract female workers. One day a delicate-looking elderly lady, accompanied by a slight and obviously tenderly-nurtured girl of sixteen, called at the office of a filling factory and asked to see the manager. "I've lost both my sons in the war," she said, "and now I bring you my daughter—she is all I have left for my country."

We have a long drive to our next place of call, but the scene at the end is worth the journey. It is a factory for the making of the wooden boxes that carry the shells to the front. All the joiners are girls.