Almost immediately, the word of command and the rattle of arms warned us that the battalion was about to march. We only had the time to pay and to lay hold of the horses' bridles.
It was pleasant weather for walking—neither too much sun nor too much shade; fine autumn weather.
And since, in comparing the Germans with our own soldiers as to their marching powers, I have often thought that they never would have reached Paris but for our railroads. Their infantry are just as conspicuous for their slowness and their heaviness as their cavalry are for their swiftness and activity. These people are splay-footed, and they cannot keep up long. When they are running, their clumsy boots make a terrible clatter; which is perhaps the reason why they wear them: they encourage each other by this means, and imagine they dismay the enemy. A single company of theirs makes more noise than one of our regiments. But they soon break out in a perspiration, and their great delight is to get up and have a ride.
Toward evening, by five o'clock, we had only gone about three leagues from Droulingen, when, instead of continuing on their way, the commander gave the battalion orders to turn out of it into a parish road on the left. Whether it was to avoid the lodgings by the way, which were all exhausted, or for some other reason, I cannot say.
Seeing this, I ran to the commanding officer in the greatest distress.
"But in the name of heaven, captain," said I, "are you not going on to Sarreguemines? We are fathers of families; we have wives and children! You promised that at Sarreguemines we might unload and return home."
George was coming, too, to complain; but he had not yet reached us, when the commander, from on horseback, roared at us with a voice of rage: "Will you return to your carts, or I will have you beaten till all is blue? Will you make haste back?"
Then we returned to take hold of our bridles, with our heads hanging down. Three hours after, at nightfall, we came into a miserable village, full of small crosses along the road, and where the people had nothing to give us; for famine had overtaken them.
We had scarcely halted, when a convoy of bread, meat, and wine arrived, escorted by a few hussars. No doubt it came from Alberstoff. Every soldier received his ration, but we got not so much as an onion: not a crust of bread—nothing—nor our horses either.
That night George and I alone rested under the shelter of a deserted smithy, while the Prussians were asleep in every hut and in the barns, and the sentinels paced their rounds about our carts, with their muskets shouldered; we began to deliberate what we ought to do.