nst the wall and died
from loss of blood.

Some were still standing upright in the brook, their hands clutching
the bank as if to climb out, rigid in death. And in obscure corners of
the ruined houses, when they were lighted up with the sun's rays, we
could see the miserable wretches crushed under the rubbish, with stones
and beams lying across their bodies.

The struggle at St. Amand became still more terrible, the discharges of
cannon seemed to rise one above the other, and if we had not all been
looking death in the face, nothing could have prevented us from
admiring this grand music.

At every discharge hundreds of men perished, but there was no
interruption, the solid earth trembled under our feet. We could
breathe again now, and very soon we began to feel a most intolerable
thirst. During the fight nobody had thought of it, but now everybody
wanted to drink.

Our house formed the corner at the left of the bridge, but the little
water that was running over the muddy bottom of the brook was red with
blood. Between our house and the next there was a little garden, where
there was a well from which to water it. We all looked at this well
with its curb and its wooden posts; the bucket was still hanging to the
chain in spite of the showers of shot, but three men were already lying
face downward in the path leading to it. The Prussians had shot them
as they were trying to reach it.

As we stood there with our loaded muskets, one said, "I would give half
my blood for one glass of that water;" another, "Yes, but the Prussians
are on the watch."

This was true, there they were, a hundred paces from us, perhaps they
were as thirsty as we, and were guessing our thoughts.

The shots that were still fired came from these houses, and no one
could go along the street, they would shoot him at once, so we were all
suffering horribly.

This lasted for another half hour, when the cannonade extended from St.
Amand to Ligny, and we could see that our batteries had opened with
grape and canister on the Prussians by the great gaps made in their
columns at every discharge.

This new attack produced a great excitement. Buche, who had not
stirred till that moment, ran down through the path leading to the well
in the garden and sheltered himself behind the curb. From the two
houses opposite a volley was fired, and the stones and the posts were
soon riddled with balls.

But we opened our fire on their windows and in an i