There are now 130 shops, and the factory covers such a large acreage that its boundary is about five miles round. Above everything else, it must not be forgotten that the _entire_ work of this factory is what is called “danger work.” Although every possible precaution is taken for the safety and health of the workers, in all handling of powerful explosives the element of danger must be present. Miss Borthwick is only twenty-seven. She is a fresh-looking girl with a very quiet manner, suggesting a reserve of resolution and courage eminently necessary in her work. On her shoulders rests the heavy responsibility for the successful working of the factory, and she has helped to develop it in an incredibly short time from a few huts to the throbbing hive of industry which it is to-day. Owing to her efficiency, and because she has never failed to make good whatever she has undertaken, she has earned this great opportunity of service to the country. She talks of her work as calmly and naturally as if there were nothing remarkable about it. Yet she made this admission while on a recent three days’ leave: “Until I came away from the factory, I hadn’t realised how heavy and how unending the responsibility is.” VIII MRS. ST. CLAIR STOBART No woman has seen the war at closer quarters and in more varied fields of action than Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, and no one has worked harder to help the sick and wounded--on the field, in besieged fortresses, at base hospitals, and in the stricken villages of a ravaged and invaded country. Everywhere she has sought and found her opportunity to bear her part in the actual campaign--a part such as no woman has ever taken before. The outbreak of war found Mrs. Stobart already trained, for she had gained her experience with the Women’s Convoy Corps, which she founded, and which did such successful work in the Balkan War in 1912-1913. Early in August, 1914, therefore, she was entrusted with the leadership of an ambulance unit, under the organisation of the St. John Ambulance Association, and proceeded at once to Brussels. Before a hospital could be established, the Germans had entered the city, and Mrs. Stobart escaped with difficulty, after having been actually a prisoner in German hands, and condemned to be shot as a spy. [Illustration: MRS. ST. CLAIR STOBART _To face page 44_ ] Nothing daunted by her first experience, Mrs. Stobart then established a hospital in Antwerp. After three weeks of fine work the town was besieged, and the bombardment began. The hospital was in the direct line of fire of one of the enemy’s objectives, the ammunition depôt, but under a storm of shell-fire Mrs. Stobart and her unit rescued their wounded, and were themselves the last to leave the burning city, crossing the bridge of boats just before it was blown up. After the fall of Antwerp Mrs. Stobart accepted an invitation from the French Red Cross to establish a hospital at Cherbourg.