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 darkened ground—darker than ever on this dank and somewhat misty night—the wraith-like figures of the girls in their overalls are moving to and fro. Inside one of the open-mouthed sheds a dozen girls are filling the paper containers with explosives. At the end of the shed there is a cauldron about five feet square, full of reddish-brown liquid, which is kept hot and seething by steam pipes beneath. One of the girls is stirring this sinister mess, while others come to her from time to time for supplies in a kind of two-handled kettle, from which they pour the liquid into the containers that stand upright in an aluminium mould on a long, low table. All the girls wear overalls and asbestos gloves, and some wear respirators, but most of them disregard the latter precaution.

It is a weird scene, this silent encampment of detached huts, with the hum of the busy city round about it, and one of the great cemeteries of London lying cold and dark not far away. But if