fought, he said,
just forty-eight hours before. "The French," he said, "must have been
here for several days. They had fortified this hill, as you see;
digging intrenchments in front for their riflemen and putting their
artillery behind at a place I shall presently show you. Also they had
placed many of their sharpshooters in the houses. It was a strong
position, commanding the passage of the river, and they should have been
able to hold it against twice their number.

"Our men came, as you did, along that road off yonder; and then our
infantry advanced across the fields under cover of our artillery fire.
We were in the open and the French were above us here and behind
shelter; and so we lost many men.

"They had mined the bridge over the canal and also the last remaining
bridge across the river; but we came so fast that we took both bridges
before they could set off the mines.

"In twenty minutes we held the town and the last of their sharpshooters
in the houses had been dislodged or killed. Then, while our guns moved
over there to the left and shelled them on the flank, two companies of
Germans--five hundred men--charged up the steep road over which you have
just climbed and took this trench here in five minutes of close
fighting.

"The enemy lost many men here before they ran. So did we lose many. On
that spot there"--he pointed to a little gap in the hedge, not twenty
feet away, where the grass was pressed flat--"I saw three dead men lying
in a heap.

"We pushed the French back, taking a few prisoners as we went, until on
the other side of this hill our artillery began to rake them, and then
they gave way altogether and retreated to the south, taking their guns.
Remember, they outnumbered us and they had the advantage of position;
but we whipped them--we Germans--as we always do whip our enemies."

His voice changed from boasting to pity:

"Ach, but it was shameful that they should have been sent against us
wearing those long blue coats, those red trousers, those shiny black
belts and bright brass buttons! At a mile, or even half a mile, the
Germans in their dark-gray uniforms, with dull facings, fade into the
background; but a Frenchman in his foolish monkey clothes is a target
for as far as you can see him.

"And their equipment--see how flimsy it is when compared with ours! And
their guns--so inferior, so old-fashioned alongside the German guns! I
tell you this: Forty-four years they have been wi