Soldiers - “We are Caught in an Ambush”
Francois recounts, "But the two of us, up in our room, by the light of the lamp that Millie had left us, stayed for a long time patching up our torn smocks and talking in low voices about what had happened to us, like two fellow soldiers on the evening of a lost battle." Francois utilizes the allegorical soldiers to concede their loss in the ambush. They sustain injuries due to the overwhelming number of boys who attack them.
“Mother Hen” - “The Boarder”
Francois narrates, “At once, she began to sing the praises of this new boy she was bringing us. I no longer recognized the grey-haired woman I had seen bending over by the door a minute earlier, with the imploring, fraught look of a mother hen which has lost the wild one of her brood." Francois employs the metaphorical ' mother hen' to accentuate the mother's apprehension after losing track of Augustin. She is absolutely anxious considering that she has been bereaved of a son.
