Felix fought at Trautenau; fought without enthusiasm, without melodramatic heroism; he fought with the sober, unbounded bravery of a man who does not need the hurrahs to be spurred on by, whose life is wholly indifferent to him, and who hopes and wishes for no other reward for his self-sacrificing performance of his duty than--death.
The leaden rain of the Prussian vanguard--it was wholly unknown to the Austrians who did not fight in Schlesing--had a soothing effect upon his nerves. The breathless excitement of battle did him good. What pained him was the moment before the conflict, when old veterans passed each other their field-flasks, and expressed indifferent opinions about the weather; and the young soldiers, scarcely grown recruits, with shining eyes and pale cheeks, cried "Hurrah!" and inflated their chests, while the guns shook in their hands. What pained him was the moment after the battle, when the last smoke of powder, and a dull echo of the noise of battle filled the air, and the soldiers, confused and stunned, met in camp, and one or another, rousing from the stupor which followed the fearful excitement of battle, asked fearfully, "Where is F----? where is M----?" and then with a shudder remembered that he, himself, had seen F---- and M---- fall. What pained him was, when in the night the wounded cried and groaned, until their comrades' compassion changed to impatience, and they complained over the noise which prevented them from sleeping.
Then came the third of July, the day of Sadowa.
It was damp, cold weather, no sun in the heavens. On the earth trodden-down grain, soiled with dirt and blood; a confusion of blue and white soldiers, partly arranged in compact, geometrically exact figures, partly scattered in sheltered positions, partly crouching behind earthworks, so far separated that Prussians and Austrians mostly saw each other as points or masses. Hostile, without hostility, they stood opposite each other; perhaps not one among the thousands upon thousands here and yonder hated the other, and yet each one was ready to do his utmost to kill the unknown enemy.
Fog mixed with the powder-smoke. There was a wild confusion of screams, groans, rolling of wheels, rattling of sabres, and stamping of horses. In the distance chaos seemed to prevail; at the spot where Felix was stationed a kind of monotony, a kind of order ruled.
The ranks close over the fallen. "Fire!" commands the officer. There is a click of the gun hammers, the flames shine redly on the gun-barrels--sch--sch whistle the hostile balls around Felix; crashing, ear-splitting, like sharp hail, answer the riflemen.
Felix was at Swiepwald, with the regiment of riflemen of which the Austrians only speak with tears in their eyes, the Prussians with hands on their caps!
For a while the losses were slight. All went well. Then came a moment when the riflemen received the hostile balls indifferently. Many of them were weary and found time to say so, still more were hungry--few Austrian soldiers received anything to eat on that memorable day, the day of Sadowa. Felix had given his last rations to a young recruit who, as he thought, needed nourishment more than he; but Felix had overestimated his strength, an unusual faintness suddenly overcame him, he begged his neighbor for his flask, and crash!--a shell--and the neighbor lay on the ground with shattered feet.
From this moment the losses are immense. Man after man falls. Little brownish-red streams of blood trickle through the ruts of the ground, the pine-trees become bare, their needles fall unpleasantly, prickingly, upon the faces of the riflemen. With the whistling of the musket-balls mingles the groaning shots of the artillery like the deafening, reechoing thunder in a mountainous country. The atmosphere is unbearably impregnated with the peculiar odor of battle. With the smell of powder and heated iron mingles the odor of perspiration of an excited mass of men, and the repulsive, terrible, salt smell of their blood.
The fog becomes more and more thick. The riflemen see nothing near them but dead comrades, and before, a white wall behind which death lurks. They no longer know what is taking place at the other end of the field, do not know that the Prussian Crown Prince has arrived; but all feel that they are fighting for a lost cause, and that their resistance is nothing more than a heroic demonstration.