They did see. They saw, looking up at them from beneath the mop of tousled black hair, the scared white face and the terror-widened eyes of a boy--a little, sickly, undernourished boy. He could not have been more than fourteen--perhaps not more than thirteen. They saw in the gap of his parted garments the narrow structure of his shape, with the ribs pressing tight against the tender, hairless skin, and below the arch of the ribs the sunken curve of his abdomen, heaving convulsively to the constant retching as he twisted and wriggled his meagre body back and forth. “Oh, Mother above!” one yowled. “They have sent a child to fight!” As though these words had been to him a command, the writhing heap half rose from the flags. “I am no child!” he cried, between choking attacks of nausea. “I am as old as the rest--older than some. Let me go! Let me go back! I am a soldier of France!” For all his brave words, his trembling legs gave way under him, and he fell again and rolled over on his stomach, hiding his face in his hands, a whimpering, vomiting child, helpless with pain and with fear. “He speaks true! He speaks true!” yelled the old woman. Now she was on her feet, her lean face red and swollen with a vast rage. “I saw them--I saw them--I saw those others as I was dragging this one in. He speaks true, I tell you. There was a captain--he could not have been more than fifteen. And his sword--it was as long as he was, nearly. There are soldiers out there like this one, whose arms are not strong enough to lift the guns to their shoulders. They are children who fight outside--children in the garb of men!” The widow, who continually wept, sprang forward. She had quit weeping and a great and terrible fury looked out of her red-lidded eyes. She screeched in a voice that rose above the wails of the rest: “And it was for this, months ago, that they took away from me my little Pierre! Mother of God, they fight this war with babies!” She threw herself down on all fours and, wriggling across the floor upon her hands and knees, gathered up the muddied, booted feet of the boy soldier and hugged them to her bosom. In the middle of the circle the old woman stood, gouging at her hair with her hands. “It is true!” she proclaimed. “They are sending forth our babies to fight against strong men.”