There was hard fighting going on in the country round Metz. Our countryman managed to get attached to an ambulance, and went on to a battle-field at night.
“We lit our lanterns,” he says, “and went cautiously into the valley. There were Prussian sharpshooters in the wood beyond, and I confess I was very nervous at first: the still night, the errand we were on, all awed one. But so soon as we reached the outskirts of the battle-field all personal feelings gave way to others. Here at every turn we found our aid was wanted. Thousands of dead and wounded were around us, and we, a few strangers sent by the International Society of London, were all that were present to help them. Plugging and bandaging such wounds as were hopeful of cure, giving a life-saving drink here and there, moving a broken limb into a more easy position, and speaking a word of encouragement where the heart was failing—this was all we could do. But all that night each worked his utmost, and when our water failed two of us walked back four miles to Gravelotte and brought a bucketful. We can dress, but not remove, the wounded now. Often have I been tempted to put a poor fellow out of his pain; it seems kinder, wiser, and more Christian to blow out the flickering lamp than let it smoulder away in hours of anguish. Daylight begins to dawn, and we seek carriages—that is, jolting unhung carts—to convey some of the wounded. Now, as we raise them up and torture their poor wounds by moving them, for the first time we hear a cry. The groans of the dying, the shrieks of the wounded, are absent from the battle-field, but far more dreadful and awe-inspiring is the awful stillness of that battle-field at night. There is a low, quivering moan floats over it—nothing more; it is a sound almost too deep for utterance, and it thrills through one with a strange horror. Hardly a word is uttered, save only a half-wailed-out cry of ‘Ohé! ma pauvre mère!’ Nothing is more touching, nothing fills one’s eyes with tears more, than this plaintive refrain chanted out as a death-chant by so many sons who never more on this side the grave will see again that longed-for mother—‘Ohé! ma mère, ma pauvre mère!’
“We select sixty or seventy of those whose wounds will bear removal, and turn our faces towards Metz. Slowly and sadly we creep out of the death-valley. The quaint hooded forms of the sentinels who challenge us cut out strangely against the green and gold of the morning sky. Not a walking-stick, not a pipe is left us: they were cut up into tourniquet-keys. I am ashamed to say I regretted my pipe; but it came back to me after many weeks, being brought to me by the man whose life it had saved. Very grateful he was. As we toil upwards, musing on life and death, bang! right in our very faces spits out a cannon. Good heavens! they surely are not going to begin this devil’s work again! Yes; there goes a battery to the crest of the hill. We must take care of ourselves and those we have so far rescued from slaughter. On we tramp, but there is no food, not a crust of bread, not a drop of water for our wounded. It is nine miles more back to Metz, and tired as we are, we must walk it. Very tired and hungry and cross we enter Metz, and there see the French ambulances waiting with waggon-loads of appliances and well-groomed horses. They had stopped to breakfast, and many hundreds have died because they did so. Well, we have earned ours, at any rate.”
It was now the 28th of August. Metz was blockaded. No letters could be sent, for the German hosts were holding the heights all round. Ruthless rough-riders were riding into every French village. In one of these, the story goes, a poor old woman was washing her little store of linen. She was very old, and her grey hair sprouted in silver tufts from her yellow skin. All the rest had fled in panic; she alone was left busy at her tub, when up rode some score of huge Dragoons. They pulled up in front of her, speaking their barbarous tongue. One Dragoon dismounts and draws his sword. Poor old woman! she falls upon her knees and lifts up wrinkled hands and cries feebly for mercy. It is in vain! Neither age nor ugliness protects her. Raising his sword with one hand, he stretches out the other towards her—the Prussian monster!—and grasps her soap. He quietly cuts it in two, pockets the one half and replaces the other on the well wall, growling out, “Madame, pardon!”
The reaction was too great. When they rode away laughing, the old woman forgot to be thankful that they had not hurt her, and swore at them for hairy thieves.
On the 15th of September there were around Metz 138,000 men fit to take the field, 6,000 cavalry and artillery. The Prussians had not anything like that number. They were dying fast of dysentery and fever, and yet Bazaine did nothing. Yet, though Metz was not strongly held, it was very difficult to get through the lines, and many a man, tempted by the bribe of 1,000 francs, lost his life in the attempt.
The English journalist tried to be his own courier and carry his own letters. He presented himself at the Prussian outposts in daylight, showed his passport, and demanded permission to “pass freely without let or hindrance.” In vain. The German soldiers treated him to beer and cigars, and suggested he should return to Metz. Next time he dressed himself up as a peasant, with blouse, and sabots on his feet, and when it was growing dusk tried to slip through the posts. “Halte là!” rang out, and a sound of a rifle’s click brought him up sharp. He was a prisoner, taken to the guard-house, and questioned severely. He pretended to be very weak-headed, almost an idiot.
“How many soldiers be there in Metz, master? I dunno. Maybe 300. There’s a power of men walking about the streets, sir.”
They smiled a superior smile, and offered the poor idiot some dark rye-bread, cheese, and beer, and some clean straw to lie down upon. Officers came to stare at him, asked him what village he was bound for. One of them knew the village he named, and recognized his description of it, for luckily he had got up this local knowledge from a native in Metz. However, he was not permitted to go to it, for before dawn next morning they led him, shuffling in his wooden sabots, to a distant outpost, turned his face towards Metz, with the curt remark: “Go straight on to Metz, friend, or you will feel a bullet go through your back.”
Grumbling to himself, he drew near the French outposts, who fired at him. He lay down for some time, then, finding he was in a potato-field, he set to work and grubbed up a few potatoes to sell for a sou a piece. So at last he found his way back to Metz, and got well laughed at for his pains.