IX—"WE DROVE THROUGH A ROARING SEA OF LOUD HURRAHS"
It was still daylight when we returned to our domicile, where the Crown Prince, just back from his day's work, was resting in the doorway. A moment later I went out for a walk in the town. At the bridges over the Meuse I was stopped by the sentries, who in authoritative but invariably polite tones asked to see my Ausweis. That they found me suspicious-looking, ambling along as I did with a sketch-book under my arm, was not to be wondered at. Only one of them, an honest Landwehr man, declared categorically that my pass was not sufficient. "Oh," I said. "The name of the Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army, General Moltke, does not impress you?" "No, the permit must be viséd by the 5th Army," he replied. A couple of his comrades saved the situation after reading the permit, and declared that General Moltke was good enough for them....
It had been arranged that at about half-past six I should look out for the Crown Prince and his staff as they passed through Dun on their way back from Romagne. The time was approaching, and we were on the watch. The traffic had not decreased at all, rather the reverse. For a moment it looked like a block, and it would have been a nice thing if the Crown Prince had arrived just then. We crossed the bridge and were outside the town, when the aristocratic-looking cars, bearing the mark, General Ober Kommando V. Armee, came tearing along at full speed. Beside the chauffeur of the first one sat the Crown Prince himself in a cloak with a high collar. He made a sign to me to get in and I took my seat behind him. Then he talked for a while to the officers of the lines of communications, and after that we started. But now the pace was slow, as we happened to meet an infantry regiment. The men took hold of their helmets by the spike, raised them aloft and gave a rousing cheer, as if they were charging a French position. But this time the cheer was meant for the Commander of the 5th Army and the heir to the throne, and we drove through a roaring sea of loud hurrahs. Gradually the ranks thinned out and finally came the stragglers—for there are footsore men even in the best marching army of all—in small groups of two or three, but they cheered as wildly as the rest. Last of all a solitary man stood by the side of the road. He, too, joined in with all the strength of his lungs. When the Crown Prince had reassumed his motor goggles and turned up the collar of his cloak he was not easily recognised, especially by the men of the transport columns we met, who had their horses to look after. But his Imperial and Royal Highness turned half round to me and said unassumingly that nothing pleased him more than to find that he was supported and understood by the soldiers. He considered it the first duty of a prince to show himself worthy of the confidence of his whole people, and for his own part he could not imagine a greater happiness than to occupy such a position in the minds of the German people.