Before the church, on the Place d'Armes, were fifteen or twenty wagons full of wounded, arriving from Leipsic and Hanau. Many poor fellows, pale, emaciated, with eyes half-closed and glassy, or rolling in agony, some with arms and legs already amputated, some with wounds not yet even bandaged, lay awaiting death. Near by, a few worn-out horses were eating their scanty provender, while their drivers, poor peasants pressed into service in Alsace, wrapped in their long, ragged cloaks, slept, in spite of cold, on the steps of the church. It was terrible to see the men, wrapped in their gray overcoats, heaped upon bloody straw; one holding his broken arm upon his knee; another binding his head with an old handkerchief; a third already dead, serving as a seat for the living. Hullin stood transfixed. He could not withdraw his eyes from the scene. Human misery in its intensest forms fascinates us. We would see how men die—how they face death; and the best among us are not free from this horrible curiosity. It seems to us as if eternity were about to disclose its secrets.
On the first wagon to the right were two carabineers in sky-blue jackets—two giants—but their strong frames were bowed with pain; they seemed two statues crushed beneath some enormous mass of stone. One, with thick red mustaches and sunken cheeks, glared with his stony eyes, as if awakened from a frightful nightmare; the other, bent double, his hands blue with cold, and his shoulder torn by a grape-shot, was becoming momentarily weaker, but from time to time started up, muttering like one in a dream. Behind, infantrymen were stretched in couples, most of them struck by bullets. They seemed to bear their fate with more fortitude than did the giants, not speaking, except that a few, the youngest, shrieked furiously for water and bread. In the next wagon, a plaintive voice—the voice of a conscript—called upon his mother, while his older comrades smiled sarcastically at his cry.
Now and then a shudder ran through them all, as a man—or mayhap several—would rise, and with a long sigh fall back. This was death.
While Hullin stood silent, the blood frozen in his heart, a citizen, Sôme, the baker, came forth from his house, carrying a large pot of boiled meat. Then you should have seen those spectres struggle, their eyes glance, their nostrils dilate; a new life seemed to animate them, for the poor wretches were dying of hunger.
Good Father Sôme, with tears in his eyes, approached, saying:
"I am coming, my children. A little patience, and you will be supplied."
But scarcely had he reached the first wagon, when the huge carabineer with the sunken cheeks plunged his arm to the elbow in the boiling pot, seized a piece of meat, and concealed it beneath his jacket. It was done like a flash, and savage cries arose on all sides. Men who had not strength enough to move would have strangled their comrade. He pressed the precious morsel to his breast, his teeth were already in it, and he glared around like a wild beast. At the cries which arose, an old soldier—a sergeant—sprang from a neighboring wagon; he understood all at a glance, and without useless delay tore the meat from the carabineer, saying:
"Thou deservest to have none. Let us divide; it will make ten rations."
"We are only eight," said a wounded man, calm in appearance, but with eyes glistening in his bronzed face. "You see, sergeant, that those two there are dying; it is no use to waste food."