"Je suis civil!"
Poor child, poor child!
The fright in his voice was heart-breaking. It said that if the "Alboches" took him for a soldat, they would shoot him, or carry him away into Germany....
I bent and kissed him.
"Je suis civil!"
He was not more than six years old.
In another room of the hospital I found about forty children, little children varying from six months to five years. Some gentle nuns were playing with them.
"Les pauvres petites!" said one of the sisters compassionately. "They've all been lost, or left behind; there's no one to claim them, so we have brought them here to look after them."
And the baby gurgled and laughed, and gave a sudden leap in the sweet nun's arms.