| caption: |
war work: running a canteen at Lumding junction |
| caption: |
Chapter twenty-two. The Coming of War |
| text: |
Our luck was out. They had stopped sending women workers up the roads, because the conditions there were so appalling. In the last days of March, 1942, we received orders to go to Lumding Junction, to run a canteen at the station there. Swearing a little, for we had formed an efficient unit for jungle-work, we reorganized ourselves and prepared to go to Haflong and collect equipment. |
| text: |
This abrupt upheaval, involving myself at least in the fringes of world catastrophe, threw sudden strain on relations with the Zemi. We at Laisong, that little group of half a dozen or so, had become a team, a 'kienga,' a matriarchal family. There was no telling what its ties, which were delicate and undefined, could stand. One couldn't expect too much; but, though the others remained behind with the house and dogs, Namkia, Haichangnang, Ramgakpa and Dinekamba were all going to (166) Lumding, which they feared much more than the Manipur refugee routes. |
