“What is happening there? The execution party is drawn out. Has a spy been caught? One? Seventeen this time. There they come, in four ranks, each one of four men, surrounded by a square of soldiers. The condemned men step out, with their heads down. Behind comes a cart with a corpse in it; and bound to the corpse the dead man’s son—a boy of twelve, also condemned.
“I could not look on at the execution, and withdrew; but I heard the firing. A cloud of smoke rose from behind the walls. All were dead, the boy included.”
“At last a comfortable night’s lodging in a little town! The poor little nest! Provisions, which were to have served the people for months, we have taken on requisition. ‘Requisition!’ Well, it is one good thing to have a pretty recognised name for a thing. However, I was at least glad to have got a good night’s lodging and a good night’s food; and—let me tell you a story:—
“I was just going to lie down in bed, when my orderly announced that a man of my regiment was there, and earnestly begged for admission, as he had something for me. ‘Well, let him come in;’ and the man entered. And before he went out I had rewarded him handsomely, shaken him by both hands, and promised to look after his wife and children. For what he brought me, the fine fellow, had given me the greatest pleasure, and had freed me from a pain under which I had been suffering for the last thirty-six hours. It was my Puxl. Injured, it is true—honourably wounded—but still alive, and so happy to be with his master, by whose behaviour he must certainly have seen that he had been wrong in charging him with want of fondness for him. Ah, that was indeed a scene of reunion. First of all, a drink of water! How good it was! He interrupted his greedy drinking ten times to bark out his joy to me. Then I bound up the stump of his leg for him, set before him a tasty supper of meat and cheese, and put him to sleep on my bed. We both slept well. In the morning when I woke he licked my hand again and again in token of thanks. Then he stretched out his poor little leg, breathed deep, and—was no more. Poor Puxl! It is better so.”
“What is all I have seen today? If I shut my eyes, what has passed before them comes with terrible distinctness into my memory. ‘Nothing but pain and pictures of horror,’ you will say. Why then do other men bring such fresh, such joyful images away with them from war? Ah, yes! These others close their eyes to the pain and the horror. They say nothing about them. If they write, or if they narrate, they give themselves no trouble to paint their experiences after nature; but they occupy themselves in imitating descriptions which they have read, and which they take as models, and in bringing out those impressions which are considered heroic. If they occasionally tell also of scenes of destruction, which contain in themselves the bitterest pain and the bitterest terror, nothing of either is to be discovered in their tone. On the contrary, the more terrible the more indifferent are they, the more horrible the more easy. Disapprobation, anger, excitement? Nothing of all this. Well, perhaps instead of this, a slight breath of sentimental pity, a few sighs of compassion. But their heads are soon in the air again. ‘The heart to God, and the hand against the foe.’ Hurrah, Tra-ra-ra!
“Now look at two of the pictures which impressed themselves on me.
“Steep, rocky heights. Jägers nimble as cats climbing up them. The object was to ‘take’ the heights, from the top of which the enemy was firing. What I see are the forms of the assailants who are climbing up, and some of them who are hit by the enemy’s shot, suddenly stretch both arms out, let their muskets fall, and with their heads falling backwards, drop off the height, step by step, from one rocky point to another, smashing their limbs to pieces.
“I see a horseman at some distance obliquely behind me, at whose side a shell burst. His horse swerved aside, and came against the tail of mine, then shot past me. The man sat still in the saddle, but a fragment of the shell had ripped his belly open, and torn all the intestines out. The upper part of his body was held on to the lower only by the spine. From the ribs to the thighs nothing but one great bleeding cavity. A short distance further he fell to the ground, with one foot still clinging in the stirrup, and the galloping horse dragging him on over the
