CHAPTER XIII.
THE DREAM IN THE BIVOUAC.
In talking over the stirring events of the past day, Captain Schönforst sat drawing out his fair fly-away whiskers to their full length, and then stuffing them into his mouth, as if to stifle his indignation at the Emperor Napoleon, for, like many other German officers at this time, he was loud in condemning him for bringing the Prince Imperial, a mere boy, under fire.
'You forget, Herr Captain,' said Charlie, 'that princes have a great political game to play in this world, and that the heir of a throne should always be a soldier.'
'But a boy—a mere boy—to be brought into action!' persisted the Captain.
'Well. The sooner his nerves are strung, the better, I think; and we must remember that boys are employed in navies as well as in armies, and it is no more inhuman to have a prince under fire than a midshipman or drummer boy.'
So the worthy captain was convinced, though much against his will.
We have no intention of afflicting the reader with a history of the terrible Franco-Prussian war; but we cannot omit the details of some of those events in which Charlie Pierrepont and his comrades, the Thuringians, bore a share.
Serious disasters followed the slight success won by the French at Saarbrück, when the Crown Prince of Prussia, two days after, made a furious attack on their right flank, which rested on a high hill called the Geisberg, just within the frontier of France and a little south-east of Saarbrück. All round the Geisberg the country is hilly and woody, with cultivated fields, detached cottages nestling among vines and flowers, and here and there pretty little hamlets.
Just as grey dawn stole in on the morning of the 4th of August, and when the French troops on the Geisberg were cooking their breakfasts and drinking their coffee quietly between their piles of arms, and looking from time to time into the beautiful pastoral valley, suddenly a storm of shells burst over them. The air seemed alive with fire and falling bombs, while, at the same moment, the whole town of Weissenburg, close by, burst into flames.