troops in billets. Others inspected distant motor parks. Others made
offers to purchase old iron among the villages in order to prove thefts
from the battlefields.

The early start at dawn, the flying miles, the winter dusk, the long
hours of travel by the faint light of the acetylene lamps filled day
after day; the unsavoury meal eaten alone by the stove, the book read
alone in the cubicle, the fitful sleep upon the stretcher, filled night
after night.

A loneliness beyond anything she had ever known settled upon Fanny. She
found comfort in a look, a cry, a whistle. The smiles of strange men
upon the road whom she would never see again became her social
intercourse. The lost smiles of kind Americans, the lost, mocking
whistles of Frenchmen, the scream of a nigger, the twittering surprise
of a Chinese scavenger.

Yet she was glad to have come, for half the world was here. There could
have been nothing like it since the Tower of Babel. The country around
her was a vast tract of men sick with longing for the four corners of
the earth.

"Have you _got_ to be here?" asked an American.

"No, I wanted to come."

The eye of the American said "Fool!"

"Are you paid to come here?" asked a Frenchman.