Later, he sent four more sacks and four great wooden cases.
We used to tramp through many fields, over a single plank bridging the
ditches, to reach the lonely shelled farm, and persuade the stubborn,
unimaginative Flemish parents to give up their children for a safe home.
One mother had a yoke around her neck, and two heavy pails.
"When can I send my child?" she asked.
She had already sent two and had received happy letters from them. Other
mothers are suspicious of us, and flatly refuse, keeping their children
in the danger zone till death comes. During a shelling, the cure would
telephone for our ambulance. He would collect the little ones and sick
old people. Miss Fyfe could persuade them to come more easily when the
shells were falling. At the moment of parting, everybody cries. The
children are dressed. The one best thing they own is put on--a pair of
shoes from the attic, stiff new shoes, worked on the little feet unused
to shoes. Out of a family of ten children we would win perhaps three.
Back across the fields they trooped to our car, clean faces, matted
dirty hair, their wee bundle tied up in a colored handkerchief, no hats,
under the loose dark shirt a tiny Catholic charm. We lifted the little
people into the big yellow ambulance--big brother and sister, sitting at
the end to pin them in. We carried crackers and chocolate. They are soon
happy with the sweets, chattering, enjoying their first motor-car ride,
and eager for the new life.
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