she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against the men before their officers.  And the boy—­he wanted to be a poilu.  He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lasted long enough for his class to be called out.  As darkness fell they ceased talking.  I began to realise that in three and a half years they had lost contact.  They were saying over and over the things that had been said already; they were trying to prevent themselves from acknowledging that they had grown different and separate.  The only bond which held them as a family was their common loneliness and fear that, if they did not hold together, their intolerable loneliness would return.  When the light was hooded, the boy sank his hand against his father’s shoulder; the woman nestled herself in the fold of his arm, with her head turned away from him, that he might not kiss her so often.  The man sat upright, his eyes wide open, watching them sleeping with a kind of impotent despair.  They were together; and yet they were not together.  He had recovered them; nevertheless, he had not recovered them.  Those Boches, the devils, they had kept something; they had only sent their bodies back.  All night long, whenever I woke up as the train halted, the little man was still guarding them jealously as a dog guards a bone, and staring morosely at the blank wall of the future.

These were among the lucky ones; the boy and woman had had a man to meet them.  Somewhere in France there was protection awaiting them and the shelter of a house that was not charity.  And yet ... all night while they slept the man sat awake, facing up to facts.  These were among the lucky ones!  That is Evian; that is the tragedy and need of France as you see it embodied in individuals.

* * * * *

The total number of repatries and refugies now in France is said to total a million and a half.  The repatries are the French civilians who were captured by the Germans in their advance and have since been sent back.  The refugies are the French civilians from the devastated areas, who have always remained on the Allies’ side of the line.  The refugies are divided into two classes:  refugies proper—­that is fugitives from the front, who fled for the most part at the time of the German invasion; and evacues—­those who were sent out of the war zone by the military authorities.  Naturally a large percentage of this million and a half have lost everything and, irrespective of their former worldly position, now live with the narrowest margin between themselves and starvation.  The French Government has treated them with generosity, but in the midst of a war it has had little time to devote to educating them into being self-supporting.  A great number of funds have been privately raised for them in France; many separate organisations for their relief have been started.  The American Red Cross is making this million and a half people its special care, and to do so is co-operating directly