very few fire kneeling; nobody dreams of shelter. We finally
reach a slight depression in the ground, and there the red
trousers are lying in masses, here and there--dead or wounded.
We club or stab the wounded, for we know that these rascals,
as soon as we are gone by, will fire from behind. We find one
Frenchman lying at full length upon his face, but he is
counterfeiting death. A kick from a robust fusilier gives him
notice that we are there. Turning over he asks for quarter,
but he gets the reply--"Oh! is that the way, blackguard, that
your tools work?" and he is pinned to the ground. On one side
of me I hear curious cracklings. They're the blows which a
soldier of the 154th is vigorously showering upon the bald
pate of a Frenchman with the stock of his gun; he very wisely
chose for this work a French gun, for fear of breaking his
own. Some men of particularly sensitive soul grant the French
wounded the grace to finish them with a bullet, but others
scatter here and there, wherever they can, their clubbings and
stabbings. Our adversaries have fought bravely. They were
élite troops that we had before us. They had allowed us to
come within thirty, and even within ten, meters--too close.
Their arms and knapsacks thrown down in heaps showed that they
wanted to fly, but upon the appearance of our "gray phantoms"
terror paralyzed them, and, on the narrow path in which they
crowded, the German bullets brought them the order to halt!
There they are at the very entrance of their leafy hiding
places, lying down moaning and asking for quarter, but whether
their wounds are light or grievous, the brave fusiliers saved
their country the expensive care which would have to be given
to such a number of enemies.