“It is nothing, Your Majesty, I am better already,” was the answer; but the tears in the eyes of the bearded soldier belied his words. The Emperor’s gaze rested on his pale face with fatherly kindness and he said encouragingly,
“Do not try to conceal anything from me, sergeant; you too wear the Iron Cross, so we are brothers in arms, and comrades should have no secrets from each other.”
Unable to resist this exhortation, the sergeant responded,
“Alas, Your Majesty, just now as we were marching out here, my only child, a promising boy of six, was run over by a wagon, and I do not know what has become of him.”
The Emperor immediately sent an adjutant to appropriate one of the near-by conveyances occupied by spectators for the use of the sergeant, whom he excused for the rest of the day, and the anxious father with tears of gratitude in his eyes hastened home to his family.
* * * * * * * *
A touching trait of the Emperor’s character is shown in his habit of making the rounds of the hospitals in time of war to assure himself personally that his wounded subjects were receiving the necessary care, and cheer them with a kindly word of encouragement or some slight gift. In the bloody year of 1866 the Woman’s Aid Society built a private hospital in Berlin, which King William frequently honored with his presence. Among the patients was a musketeer who had lost his left arm.
“Your Majesty,” said this man one day to the King, “I am twenty-four years old to-day. To have had the happiness of seeing the King on my birthday—I shall never forget it, sire!”
“Nor shall I, my brave fellow,” replied the King, giving his hand to the soldier, who kissed it with deep emotion. The King passed on from bed to bed, but just as he was about to leave he said to his suite, “I must see that man again whose birthday it is,” and returning to the musketeer’s cot he talked with him for some time. That night, after the invalid was asleep and dreaming of his sovereign, one of the royal huntsmen appeared with a gold watch and chain, sent by the King as a remembrance of the day. The lucky man was often asked where he got this fine watch.
“Guess!” he would always say, and after the inquisitive questioner had tried in vain to solve the riddle, he would shout with a beaming face: “It is from my King, my good King William!”