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Thick-stemmed sycamores cast their shadow on the hospital, and from three sides came the murmur of the slothful stream mingled with the rustling of the leaves, as if the garden, when twilight fell, was moved by compassion and sang a slumber song for the lacerated men, who had to suffer in rank and file, regimented up to their very death, up to the grave, into which they unfortunate cobblers, tinkers, peasants, and clerks were shoved to the accompaniment of salvos from big-mouthed cannon.
The document was then transferred to two of the attendant prelates, by whom it was read aloud; and subsequently the authority given by the Pope for the solemnization of the marriage was, in like manner, made public. The remainder of the nuptial service was then performed amid perpetual salvos of artillery.
A few far-apart shots the batteries fire no more; and now that the salvos are extinguished, we see the fire in the steel go out. In the abysmal silence we hear a gunner groan: "There's no more shell." The shadow of twilight resumes its place in the sky henceforward empty. It grows cold. There is a mysterious and terrible mourning.
At Muhalleh was the fourth caravan under Maganga with three more sick men, who turned with eager eyes to myself, "the dispenser of medicine," as I approached. Salvos of small arms greeted me, and a present of rice and ears of Indian corn for roasting were awaiting my acceptance; but, as I told Maganga, I would have preferred to hear that his party were eight or ten marches ahead.
The din of battle was stunning, stupendous, deafening, as hundreds of the heaviest guns in the world roared out at once. Great masses of water rose in the air like waterspouts, reaching as high as the masts, as the salvos of German shells fell short or went over their target. Now and then a shell found its mark, but it left us absolutely cold as to its effect on each man at a time like this.
Undoubtedly at the Potsdam maneuvers the Prussian infantry used only salvos executed admirably. An unbelievable discipline kept the soldier in place and in line. Barbaric punishments were incorporated in the military code. Blows, the whip, executions, punished the slightest derelictions. Even N.C.O.'s were subjected to blows with the flat of the sword.
Preparations had been made there for a military triumph, with salvos of cannon, music, and colors flying; and the minister of war, Prince Tschernitscheff, had most inopportunely arrived to witness it; but instead he beheld the battalions marching in with faintly beating drums, the men haggard from fatigue and want of food, their uniform tattered and blood-stained, and the officers sadder still at the loss of so many brave soldiers sacrificed in vain.
Salvos of cannon were likewise fired, and the starving city for a brief space put on the aspect of a holiday, much to the astonishment of the besieging forces, who were not yet aware of the Prince's efforts. They perceived very soon, however, as the water everywhere about Leyden had risen to the depth of ten inches, that they stood in a perilous position.
The echoes of the national salute which have so recently commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the close of the official career of Washington as commander-in-chief of the army of the Revolution, may well be associated with those midnight salvos of artillery which crowned his first campaign with an enduring success, and, once for all, rescued the soil of the Bay State from the tread of a hostile foot.
The Prussians suffered in the same way at Jena. Their lines tried fire at command against our skirmishers. You might as well fire on a handful of fleas. They tell us of the English salvos at Sainte-Euphemie, in Calabria, and later in Spain. In these particular cases they could be used, because our troops charged without first sending out skirmishers.
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