Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places | Page 4

of the Hohenzollerns
was drawn up in the street in front of it, in trying to dislodge which the
French fire could not well miss the Hagen and the houses opposite. A
shell burst in the back-yard and the landlady fainted. Another came
crashing in through a first-floor window, and, bursting, knocked several

bedrooms into one. Then we thought it time to get the women down
into the cellar--rather a risky undertaking since the door of it was in the
backyard. However, we got them all down in safety and came up into
the second saal to watch the course of events. Hagen gave a fearful
groan as a shell broke into the kitchen behind us, and, bursting in the
centre of the stove, sent his _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of cookery sputtering in
all directions. He gave a still deeper groan as another shell crashed into
the principal dining-room and knocked the long table, laid out as it was
for the marriage-feast, into a chaos of splinters, tablecloth, and knives
and forks. The Restauration Küche on the other side was in flames, so
was the stable of the hotel to the left rear. In this pleasing situation of
affairs George produced a pack of cards and coolly proposed a game of
whist. Küster, de Liefde, and Hyndman joined him; and the game
proceeded amidst the crashing of the projectiles. Silberer and myself
took counsel together and agreed that the occupation of the town by the
French was only a question of a few hours at latest. We were both
correspondents; and although the French would do us no harm our
communications with our journals would inevitably be stopped--a
serious contingency to contemplate at the beginning of a campaign. We
both agreed that evacuation of the Hagen was imperative; but then, how
to get out? The only way was up the esplanade to the railway station,
and upon it the French shells were falling and bursting in numbers very
trying to the nerves. However, there was nothing for it but to make a
rush through the fire; and saying good-bye to the whist-players we
sallied forth. To my disgust I found that Silberer positively refused to
make a rush of it. Although an Austrian all his sympathies were
Prussian, and he had the utmost contempt for the French. In his broken
language his invariable appellation for them was "God-damned
Hundsöhne!" and he would not run before them at any price. I would
have run right gladly at top-speed; but I did not like to run when
another man walked, and so he made me saunter at the rate of two
miles an hour till we got under shelter. After a hot walk of several
miles, we reached the Hôtel Till in the village of Duttweiler. After all
the French, although they might have done so, did not occupy
Saarbrücken; and towards evening our friends came dropping into the
Hôtel Till, singly or in pairs. Küster and George brought the Vogt
sisters out in a waggon--it was surprising to see the coolness and

composure of the girls. By nightfall we were all reunited, except one
unfortunate fellow who had been slightly wounded and whom a
Saarbrücken doctor had kindly received into his house.
On the 6th August came the Prussian repossession of Saarbrücken and
the desperate storm of the Spicheren. The 40th was the regiment to
which was assigned the place of honour in the preliminary recapture of
the Exercise Platz height. Kameke rode up the winding road to the
Bellevue; then came the march across the broad valley and after much
bloodshed the final storm of the Spicheren, in which the 40th occupied
about the left centre of the Prussian advance. Three times did the blue
wave surge up the green steep, to be beaten back three times by the
terrible blast of fire that crashed down upon it from above. Yet a fourth
time it clambered up again, and this time it lipped the brink and poured
over the intrenchment at the top. But I am not describing the battle.
When it was over or at least when it had drifted away across the farther
plateau, I followed on in the broad wake of dying and dead which the
advance had left. The familiar faces of the Hohenzollerns were all
around me; but either still in death or writhing in the torture of wounds.
About the centre of the valley lay the genial Hauptmann von Krehl,
more silent than ever now, for a bullet had gone right through that red
head of his and he would never more quaff of the Niersteiner; neither
would Lieutenant von Klipphausen ever again stir the blood of the sons
of the Fatherland with the _Wacht am Rhein_; he lay dead close by the
first spur of the slope--what