read or darn or write. They lived so close to each other that even the
most genial had learnt to care for solitude, and the sitting-room
remained empty.

The noise of Stewart's feet sounded in the corridor. She swung a lantern
in her hand; her face was shining, her hair streaming.

"Is there any food?"

"It's on the stove."

"Is it eatable?"

"No."

Silence for a while, and then one by one they crept out into the black
mud beyond the hut to fill their cans with hot water from the
cook-house--and so to bed, on stretchers slung on trestles, where those
who did not sleep listened through the long night to those who slept
too well.

"Are you awake?" came with the daylight. "Ah, you are washing! You are
doing your hair!" There was no privacy.

"How cold, how cold the water, is!..." sighed Fanny, And a voice through
the paper wall, catching the shivering whisper, exclaimed: "Use your
hot-water bottle!"

"What for?"