Believing I saw a veteran of our great civil war, I asked, with undisguised interest,
“Where did you serve? Where were you wounded?”
“Von year und half in war mit Danemark, von year und half mit Oustria, und two mit Vrance.”
I looked at him again. What! That undersized, insignificant appearing little chap, whom I could easily have pitched into the ditch, he a soldier of Sadowa, of Metz, of Paris. Bah!
“So, the wars over, you emigrated to America?”
“Right avay. Ven I get home from Baris I tell Linda, my vife, ‘Look here, Linda: I been soldier six year. Now I plenty fighting got. Dere’s two hunder thaler in the knapsack. Shut your mouth tight, open your eye close, and we get out of dis double-quig.’ She say ‘Where I go?’ und I tell her the U-nited States, by hell, befor anoder var come. She begin to cry, I begin to schwear, und we settle it right avay.”
I asked if he minded telling how he came by the wound in his hand. This is what he told me in his broken English:
When Marshal Bazaine made his last desperate effort to shake off the deadly gripe the Prussians had fastened upon Metz, a battalion of tirailleurs suddenly surrounded an advanced post established by the Germans in the suburbs. The morning was foggy, and the surprise complete. The picket had hardly the time to run to their arms before they were driven back pell-mell on the reserve, amid a shower of balls. The reserve took refuge in a stone building surrounded by a thick hedge, maintaining an irregular fire from the windows. One of the last to cross the court-yard, with the French at his heels, was our German. Before he could gain the friendly shelter of the house he stumbled and fell headlong, his gun flying through the air as he came to the ground, so that he was not only prostrate but disarmed.
Half-stunned, he scrambled to his knees just as his nearest pursuer made a savage lunge with his sabre-bayonet. The Prussian instinctively grasped it. While trying thus to parry the deadly thrust, the keen weapon pierced his hand, and he was a second time borne to the earth, or, rather, pinned to it by his adversary’s bayonet.
“Rendez-vous Allemand, cochon!” screamed the Frenchman, bestriding the little Prussian with a look of mortal hatred.