In the _scramble_, members (as on leaving meetings) enter automobiles. The drivers start the motors. Suddenly the doors of the cars will open and the comrades will get out, including the drivers. They scramble, meaning they quickly take seats in the other cars, whereupon all autos will move away in different directions. It’s hard for any “pursuer” to tell who went in which car. The underground creates intense strains on family life. The undeviating demands of the Party (its interests must come first, regardless of personal consequences) leave deep scars. For years many families are separated. On some occasions a midnight contact or a few days of furlough are permitted. Children grow up without seeing their fathers. In one instance a child was stricken with polio. His underground father did not leave his Party work to come to the child’s bedside. Mothers are often hard pressed to give answers to the question, “Where’s Daddy?” Some “explain” that Daddy is away on a trip, in another town, or dead. One little boy, whose father was gone, said: “I wish my father was in jail. Then I could at least see him.” Normal family relationships are disrupted. The Party may promise financial assistance to the families of underground comrades, but many times the support is miserly or does not come at all. Heart-rending results ensue: During the past four years, Hank and I have been separated most of the time [one Party wife wrote]. There has never been any question about carrying out the decisions made, even when Hazel [small daughter] and I were set adrift by the Party with no financial provision and I had to go to my family so that my infant could have food and a place to live. When Hazel almost died from third-degree burns, Hank didn’t even know about it since we had no way to communicate. I have been cut off from my family completely. The furniture, clothes and other things that we accumulated during our marriage we’ll probably never see again. We have moved, and moved, and moved yet again ... dragging Hazel around from place to place, carrying out decisions made, guarding our security and that of others. The total effect was demoralizing. The wife continues: I can’t have an operation because it would mean six months in a cast and on my stomach—and there is no one to take care of Hazel .... I get overtired physically, and the past four years of the kind of life we have led, with its many pressures of loneliness, financial scrounging, security measures and the sword of Damocles—that of being discovered—hanging over my head, finally took its toll.