a cart with a corpse in it, and bound to the corpse the dead
man's son, a boy of twelve, also condemned.... Steep, rocky
heights; Jaegers, nimble as cats, climbing up them.... Some of
them, who are hit by the enemy's shot, suddenly stretch out both
their arms, 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 saw a
horseman at some distance, obliquely behind me, at whose side a
shell burst. His horse swerved aside and came against the tail
of mind, then shot past me. The man sat still in the saddle, but
a fragment of the shell had ripped his belly open and torn out
all the intestines. The upper part of his body was held to the
lower only by the spine. From the ribs to the thighs nothing but
one great, bleeding cavity. A short distance farther he fell to
the ground, one foot still clinging in the stirrup, and the
galloping horse dragging him on over the stony soil.... Another
street fight in the little town of Saar.... In the middle of the
square stands a high pillar of the Virgin. The mother of God
holds her child in one arm, and stretches the other out in
blessing.... Here the fight was prolonged, man to man. They
were hacking at me, I laying about me on all sides.... A
Prussian dragoon, strong as Goliath, tore one of our officers (a
pretty, dandified lieutenant--how many girls are, perhaps, mad
after him?) out of his saddle and split his skull at the feet of
the Virgin's pillar. The gentle saint looked on unmoved.
Another of the enemy's dragoons--a Goliath, too--seized, just
before me almost, my right-hand man, and bent him backwards in
his saddle so powerfully that he broke his back--I myself heard
it crack. To this the Madonna gave her blessing also."