ldren have no parents. Others have lost their mothers; their
fathers are serving in the trenches. It is not always easy to find out
how they became orphans; there are such plentiful chances of losing
parents who live continually under shell-fire. One little boy on being
asked where his mother was, replied gravely, "My Mama, she is dead.
Les Boches, they put a gun to 'er 'ead. She is finished; I 'ave no
Mama."

The unchildlike stoicism of these children is appalling. I spent
two days among them and heard no crying. Those who are sick, lie
motionless as waxen images in their cots. Those who are supposedly
well, sit all day brooding and saying nothing. When first they arrive,
their faces are earth-coloured. The first thing they have to be taught
is how to be children. They have to be coaxed and induced to play;
even then they soon grow weary. They seem to regard mere playing as
frivolous and indecorous; and so it is in the light of the tragedies
they have witnessed. Children of seven have seen more of horror in
three years than most old men have read about in a life-time. Many
of them have been captured by and recaptured from the Huns. They have
been in villages where the dead lay in piles and not even the women
were spared. They have been present while indecencies were worked upon
their mothers. They have seen men hanged, shot, bayoneted and flung
to roast in burning houses. The pictures of all these things hang
in their eyes. When they play, it is out of politeness to the kind
Americans; not because they derive any pleasure from it.

Night is the troublesome time. The children hide under their beds with
terror. The nurses have to go the rounds continually. If the children
would only cry, they would give warning. But instead, they creep
silently out from between the sheets and crouch against the floor like
dumb animals. Dumb animals! That is what they are when first they
are brought in. Their most primitive instincts for the beginnings of
cleanliness seem to have vanished. They have been fished out of caves,
ruined dug-outs, broken houses. They are as full of skin-diseases as
the beggar who sat outside Dives' gate, only they have had no dogs to
lick their sores. They have lived on offal so long that they have the
faces of the extremely aged. And their hatred! Directly you utter the
word "Boche," all the little night-gowned figures sit up in their cots
and curse. When they have done cursing, of their own accord, they sing