The rain had ceased; behind the Col du Pigeonnier sunshine fell through a rift in the watery clouds. It touched the rushing river, shining on foaming fords where our cavalry pickets were riding in the valley mist.
Somewhere up in the vineyards behind us an infantry band was playing; away among the wet hills to the left the strumming vibrations of wet drums marked the arrival of a regiment from goodness knows where; and presently we saw them, their gray overcoats and red trousers soaked almost black with rain, rifles en bandoulière, trudging patiently up the muddy slope above the town. Something in the plodding steps of those wet little soldiers touched me. Bravely 18 their soaked drums battered away, bravely they dragged their clumsy feet after them, brightly and gayly the breaking sun touched their crimson forage-caps and bayonets and the swords of mounted officers; but to me they were only a pathetic troop of perplexed peasants, dragged out of the bosom of France to be huddled and herded in a strange pasture, where death watched them from the forest yonder, marking them for slaughter with near-sighted Teutonic eyes.
A column of white cloud suddenly capped the rocks on the vineyard above. Bang! and something came whistling with a curious, bird-like cry over the village of Morsbronn, flying far out across the valley: and among the pines of the Prussian forest a point of flame flashed, a distant explosion echoed.
Down in the street below us an old man came tottering from his little shop, peering sideways up into the sky.
“Il pleut, berger,” called out the operator beside me, in a bantering voice.
“It will rain—bullets,” said the old man, simply, and returned to his shop to drag out a chair on the doorsill and sit and listen to the shots which our cavalry outposts were exchanging with the Prussian scouts.
“Poor old chap,” said the operator; “it will be hard for him. He was with the Grand Emperor at Jena.”
“You speak as though our army was already on the run,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, indifferently, “we’ll soon be on the run.”
After a moment I said: “I’m going to ride to La Trappe. I wish you would send those messages to Paris.”