CHAPTER VIII

THE PLUNGE

"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave."--MILTON.

Yes! Not even yet was there to be rest after the exertions of the first day's land-work.

As Elizabeth and I hobbled into the hut ten minutes after the others, Vic's voice hailed us above the laughing clatter:

"Here, Celery-face and Mop! Off with your spotless--I don't think--uniforms, and come on for a nice swim!"

"Swim?" we echoed, glancing aghast about the hut.

The gang of timber girls, with Miss Easton, had returned from their woods, and they and the farm girls were in various stages of getting out of land-kit and into swimming costumes.

After hard work, here they were all ready again for hard play, for exercise, for plunging into cold water.

I began to say something wistful about embrocation.

"Embrocation? There's a whole pool of something better for you than embrocation outside," Vic said with scorn. "You get those two extra costumes out, Sybil, will you? And you, kids, off with your boots."

There was no gainsaying this redoubtable Vic. Big, and brown, and beaming with good-humor, she stood over us. We just had to start unlacing our gaiters.

The girls trooped out into the meadow in coats over their bathing dresses. Vic and Sybil waited inexorably, for us. Reluctantly and stiffly I took off my overall. And I saw Vic's eyes fasten upon the garments that I was wearing underneath.

They were the same "pretties" that I always wore in town under my georgette blouses. I made them myself. The under-bodice that attracted Vic's notice was of bluish-pink crêpe-de-chine with mauve satin ribbon shoulder-straps, and with the wings of a sky-blue bird--for Happiness--embroidered across the front.

"That's a dinky 'casserole' you've got on there, young Celery-face," pronounced Vic, scrutinizing this garment. "Swanky Royal Air Service crest touch! And a silk 'chim' underneath it, too! My word! You won't be wearing those things long on the farm, though. Look here, Syb!"

Sybil, who had brought out the spare costumes, came up. From her voice and ways I'd fancied that she would sympathize with my own idea of dressing for the Land. This was to make it a point of self-respect that, though I must wear coarse holland and rough stuff for my outside things, my under-garments should still be as dainty as ever.

It surprised me when Sybil, glancing at my underthings, shook her head deprecatingly.

"Those won't do," she told me gently. "Not for cleaning out cow-houses in! You don't find a man-worker--well!" she laughed, "you never find a man wearing pink crêpe-de-chine all day. But what I mean is that when you're on a man's job you've got to dress the part, not just for the look of it, but for the use. A man works 'in the sweat of his brow'--and of his body. So he has got to have clothes he can sweat into comfortably--to put it frankly. He doesn't wear things that hold the moisture and cling--as yours are doing now."

I glanced down. The crepe and ribbons certainly were clinging to me. Moreover, they were very chilly now I'd stopped moving about.

"Give you your death of cold, those would," Vic declared, and Sybil, wrapping a towel round my shoulders, supported her.

"Working as a man, you simply can't wear the clothes you wore when you were just sitting still as a girl!" she remarked.

"I can't wear woollies and sweaters next me," I protested. "I would rather die of cold!"

"You needn't wear wool," Sybil said, as I got stiffly into my costume. "Though of course athletes say a sweater next your skin is the only thing. They do scoff at the way women wear four thicknesses of silk or lace, and then a 'sweater' over it all, doing no good! But you must wear a woven vest or one of linen mesh--or anything that dries quickly, and lets the air through to your skin. I'll lend you something, then you can order more."

"And keep dinky undies For civvies and Sundays,"

sang out Vic. "Now then, ready?"

Vic caught each of us by an arm, and ran us out of hut and home, down the green and daisied meadow at the back of the camp.

In front of us two girls, with bare legs showing under their ballooning Land Army coats, and a third swathed round with a bath-robe, were gambolling like lambs down the grassy path. From behind the alders at the bottom came sounds of splashing and laughter. We followed to where the bank descended under trees to the Welsh trout-stream, brightly clear as a child's eyes, with little cataracts between mossy boulders from which the girls could dive into the wide, smooth pool that reflected them.

Well! It was all the bathroom the camp had. We might as well get in and treat it as a good wash!

Elizabeth, on the pool brink, said:

"N--neither of us can swim, you know--oooh!" she wound up with her little screech. Vic, gently, but firmly, had shoved her under water.

I dipped before she could catch hold of me, while the others shouted with laughter. The first moment was awful. Then came the glorious glow and tingle of reaction, and we felt quite jolly, as Vic promised that she and young Sybil would soon teach us to swim.

"In and out with you today, though," she decreed. "Here's the towel--have a scrub now. I'll rub you down."

Scarified but warm enough, we sat under an alder in our overcoats, watching the others until tea-time or supper-time as we cared to call it. And then--Ah! It was as though one substantial midday meal had never been....

We just legged it ("for the best!" as the Timber girls shouted) back to the mess-table in the Hut!