It was near Christmas then, and to cheer Bruno after the foregoing
scene I spoke to him of the merry Christmas-times in the Fatherland.
He shook his head mournfully: "Ach Gott! die werd' ich nie
wiedersehen" ("I shall never see them again"). The only thing which he
seemed very much to regret was that he should not live long enough to
get the cross he had won, so that it might be sent to his father
at his little village on the Elbe. Well, the next afternoon we were
gathered in the same mournful and hushed way about his bedside. The
dying Saxon alone broke the silence. There is no way of reproducing
in English the wonderful pathos of his speech, mellow even in its
faintness. I suppose I ought to say that his mind was wandering, but
at the time it did not seem so to me. He spoke first of the green
fields approaching his native village, then of the flowers; and
then finally he exclaimed, "There gleams the Elbe, and there comes
father!--Father!" And in the joy of that meeting, real or imaginary, a
smile parting his lips, he died.

We gave the gentle Saxon the poor honor of a separate grave, and
as soon after the siege as I could get a letter out I wrote to his
father, sending the few little trinkets that had been trusted to my
keeping. In the answer and thanks of the lonely old man--for he was
now widowed and childless--there was something almost as sad as the
death I have been telling you of. He could not hear enough of his
son's last days, and our correspondence ceased only when my minutest
details had been given.

I have already told you of our last sortie, and really of our last
service as a corps. A few days after the loss of our coffee-pot the
armistice was declared. Those were sad times. I can't tell you of the
despair of that whole city. It makes me dizzy even to remember it.