All this work of the stricken inhabitants, with their replanted fruit trees and scanty stores of new implements, had to be abandoned almost at a moment's notice. Many of the peasants, stunned by the new catastrophe, had to be aroused to flight by the friendly orders of the retreating British officers. The Red Cross workers, the Dames de France, and a group of courageous American women--the Smith College girls--aided the refugees day and night in their retreat from town to town until the German advance was checked a few miles short of Amiens. The American Red Cross transported thousands from the towns and villages behind the British lines, working thirty automobiles night and day, and carrying 2,000 to friends in Paris in the first few days. These were mostly women, children, and aged persons who had been awakened by the Red Cross workers on the morning of the 25th, taken to the railroad in trucks, and thence transported by rail in special trains. Most of the refugees were able to save only a few of their belongings, which were wrapped up in shawls and bed sheets, or carried in baskets or handbags. One woman, 81 years old, carried only a basket of live chickens, and cried because she had been unable to save two rabbits. Another woman carried a few cooking utensils under her arm. Many women and children were crying because they had been separated from relatives and friends. Children only a month old and people who had reached the age of 90 were alike numbered among the unfortunates. TRAGIC SCENES "I saw the first tide of these poor people when the Germans came near to Ham and Péronne and Roye," wrote Philip Gibbs on March 29. "Some of them had been once in the hands of the Germans, and at this second menace they left their homes and their fields and their shops, and came trekking westward and southward. "One's heart bleeds to see these refugees, and it is the most tragic aspect of these days. There are many old people among them, old women in black gowns and caps who come hobbling very slowly down the highway of war, and old men with bent backs who lean heavily on their gnarled sticks as the guns go by, and the fighting men.