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!