“The village is ours—no, it is the enemy’s—now ours again—and yet once more the enemy’s; but it is no longer a village, but a smoking mass of the ruins of houses.
“The inhabitants (was it not really their village?) had left it previously and were away—luckily for them, for the fighting in an inhabited place is something really fearful; for then the bullets from friend and foe fall into the midst of the rooms and kill women and children. One family, however, had remained behind in the place which yesterday we took, lost, retook, and lost again—namely, an old married couple and their daughter, the latter in childbed. The husband is serving in our regiment. He told me the story as we were nearing the village. ‘There, colonel, in that house with the red roof, is living my wife with her old parents. They have not been able to get away, poor creatures; my wife may be confined any moment, and the old folks are half-crippled; for God’s sake, colonel, order me there!’ Poor devil! he got there just in time to see the mother and child die; a shell had exploded under their bed. What has happened to the old folks I do not know. They are probably buried under the ruins; the house was one of the first set on fire by the cannonade. Fighting in the open country is terrible enough, but fighting amongst human dwellings is ten times more cruel. Crashing timber, bursting flames, stifling smoke; cattle run mad with fear; every wall a fortress or a barricade, every window a shot-hole. I saw a breastwork there which was formed of corpses. The defenders had heaped up all the slain that were lying near, in order, from that rampart, to fire over on to their assailants. I shall surely never forget that wall in all my life. A man, who formed one of its bricks, penned in among the other corpse-bricks, was still alive, and was moving his arm.
“ ‘Still alive’—that is a condition, occurring in war with a thousand differences, which conceals sufferings incalculable. If there were any angel of mercy hovering over the battlefields he would have enough to do in giving the poor creatures—men and beasts—who are ‘still alive’ their coup de grâce.”
“Today we had a little cavalry skirmish in the open field. A Prussian cavalry regiment came forward at a trot, deployed into line, and then, with their horses well in hand and their sabres above their heads, rode down on us at a hand gallop. We did not wait for their attack, but galloped out against the enemy. No shots were exchanged. When a few paces from each other both ranks burst out into a thundering ‘hurrah’ (shouting intoxicates; the Indians and Zulus know that even better than we do); and so we rushed on each other, horse to horse, knee to knee; the sabres whistled in the air and came down on the men’s heads. Soon all were huddled together too close to use their weapons; then they struggled breast to breast, and the horses, getting wild and frightened, snorted and plunged, reared up, and struck about them. I too was on the ground once, and saw—no very pleasant sight—a horse’s hoof striking out within a hair’s breadth of my temples.”
“Another day of marching, with one or two skirmishes. I have experienced a great sorrow. Such a mournful picture accompanies me. Among the many pictures of woe which are all around me this ought not so to strike me, ought not to give me such pain. But I cannot help it; it touches me nearly, and I cannot shake it off. Puxl—our poor, happy, good, little dog—oh, if I had only left him at home with his little master, Rudolf! He was running after us, as usual. Suddenly he gave a shriek of pain; the splinter of a shell had torn off his foreleg. He could not come after us, so is left behind, and is ‘still alive.’ Between twenty-four and forty-eight hours have passed, and he
