Cool and refreshed, the battalion marched back to the barracks, which consisted of two long, hastily constructed wooden buildings, exactly like hundreds of others on all sides about as far as the eye could reach. Some of the buildings were half underground, for warmth in winter, and must have been rather stuffy. Our buildings were well ventilated with many dormer windows in the sharply slanting roof, and they were new and clean and free from the insects which in secret I had been dreading. Inside was nothing at all except two long wooden platforms running the length of the building, about ninety feet. They were very roughly planed and full of bumps and knot holes, but they were the only beds provided by a step-motherly government. Here the women dumped their heavy loads, their guns, ammunition belts, gas masks, dog tents, trench spades, food pails and other paraphernalia. Here they unrolled their big overcoats for blankets, and here for the next week, all of us, officers, soldiers and war correspondent, ate, slept and lived. Two hundred and fifty women in the midst of an army of men. Behind us a government too engrossed in fighting for its own existence to concern itself about the safety of any group of women. Before us the muttering guns of the German foe. Between us and all that women have ever been taught to fear, a flimsy wooden door. But sleeplessly guarding that door a woman with a gun. In that first midnight in camp I woke on my plank bed to hear the shuffling of men’s feet on the threshold, a loud knock at the door, and from our sentry a sharp challenge: “Who goes there?” “We want to come in,” said a man’s voice ingratiatingly. “No one can come in at this hour,” answered the sentry. “Who are you and what do you want?” The man’s answer was brutally to the point. “Aren’t there girls here?” he demanded. “There are no girls here,” was the instant reply. “Only soldiers are here.” An angry fist crashed against the thin wood, to be answered by the swift click of a rifle barrel on the other side. “Unless you leave at once we shall fire on you,” said the sentry in a voice of portentous calm. Down the long plank platform I heard a succession of low chuckles, and a sleepy comment or two which the retreating men outside would not have found complimentary. That midnight encounter served the excellent purpose of finally establishing the status of the regiment in camp. From that time on we lived unmolested. We stood in line with the men at the cookhouse for our daily rations of black bread, soup and kasha, a sort of porridge made of buckwheat. We performed our simple morning toilets in the open; we washed our clothes in improvised washtubs behind the barracks; we strolled about between drills. The men followed us around from morning until night. They watched us open eyed, hung in curious groups before the doors. A few were openly friendly, and beyond some disparaging remarks regarding our personal appearance none were hostile.