This girl, Germaine Mercier, has seen the war from its very beginning, and she is old enough to remember and understand. Her home was at Villerupt, near the frontiers of Belgium, Alsace, and Luxembourg, and she remembers the first horror of the news that the Germans were marching through the country toward her town. She is alone in the world. Her mother is dead; her father was killed on the battlefield. She has neither sister or brother, but the officers of Company "A" of the ... Engineers are her godfathers and her face lights up when she speaks of them. She calls herself "their affectionate granddaughter". The American Red Cross administers the funds for the maintenance of all the children adopted by the American troops