Chapter XII (1)

_Ruin of the Austrian cause at Königgrätz.--Dr. Bresser at the seat
of war.--I resolve to join him and seek for my husband.--Aspect of
the railway station and line in a time of defeat.--The
journey.--The regimental surgeon’s experiences of the horrors of
war.--I arrive at the seat of war and meet Dr. Bresser and Frau
Simon.--Night journey to Horonewos.--The horrors I saw there.--I
sink exhausted under them, and am carried back by Dr. Bresser to
Vienna.--My father takes me home, and there I am joined by my
husband, who had been wounded._

The battle of Königgrätz had been fought. Another defeat! And this time as it seemed a decisive one. My father communicated the news to us in such a tone as he would have used in announcing the end of the world.

And no letter, no telegram from Frederick. Was he wounded? dead? Conrad gave his _fiancée_ news of himself--he was untouched. The lists of the slain had not yet arrived, it was only known that there were 40,000 killed and wounded at Königgrätz; and the latest news I had had ran: “We are moving to-day to Königgrätz”.

On the third day still not a line. I wept and wept for hours: I could weep just because my grief was not quite hopeless; if I had known that all was over, there would have been no tears for my load of woe. My father too was deeply depressed. And my brother Otto was mad with thirst for revenge. It was announced that corps of volunteers were to be formed in Vienna. He wanted to join them. It was further announced that Benedek was to be removed from his command and the victorious Archduke Albert summoned to the north to take his place, and then perhaps there might yet be a rally; the overweening enemy, who wanted altogether to annihilate us, might be beaten back, as he would be caught on his march on Vienna. Fear, rage, pain filled all minds; all pronounced the name of “the Prussians” as if they were all that is detestable. My only thought was Frederick--and no news--none!

A few days afterwards arrived a letter from Dr. Bresser. He was busy in the neighbourhood of the battlefield in giving what assistance he could. The need, he wrote, was without limit, mocking all power of imagination. He had joined a Saxon physician, Dr. Brauer, who had been despatched by his government to give them information from actual inspection on the state of affairs. In two days a Saxon lady was to arrive--Frau Simon, a new Miss Nightingale--who since the outbreak of the war had been busy in the hospitals of Dresden, and who had offered to undertake the journey to the fields of battle in Bohemia in order to render assistance in the hospitals adjacent. Dr. Brauer, and Dr. Bresser with him, were going, on a day named, at seven in the evening, to Königinhof, the nearest station to Königgrätz to which the railway was still open, to await the courageous lady there. Bresser begged us to send if possible a quantity of bandages and such things to that station, so that he might receive them there himself.

I had hardly read this letter before my resolution was taken. I would take the box of bandages myself. In one of those hospitals which Frau Simon was to visit possibly lay Frederick. I would join her and find the dear sufferer--nurse him--save him. The idea seized me with compelling force--so compelling that I held it to be a magnetic influence from afar, derived from the longing wish with which the dear one was calling for me.

Without telling any one in my family of my purpose--for I should only have encountered resistance on all hands--I embarked on the journey a few hours after the receipt of Bresser’s letter. I had given out that I wanted to look out the things which the doctor required, in Vienna, and send them off myself, and so I managed to get away from Grumitz without difficulty. From Vienna I meant to write to my father “I am off to the seat of war”. It is true that doubts arose in me--my incapacity and want of experience, my horror of wounds, blood, and death--but I chased these doubts away. What I was doing I was compelled to do. The gaze of my husband was fixed on me, in prayer and supplication. From his bed of pain he was stretching his arms out after me, and “I am coming, I am coming,” was all I was able to think of.

I found the city of Vienna in unspeakable excitement and confusion. Disturbed faces all round me. My carriage came across a number of carriages full of wounded men. I was always looking to see whether Frederick might be among them. But no! His longing cry, which vibrated in my vitals, rang from far away, from Bohemia. If he had been sent off home the news would have come to us simultaneously.

I drove to an hotel. From thence I went to look after my purchases, sent the letter which I had prepared for Grumitz, got myself equipped in a travelling costume most adapted for rough work, and drove to the Northern Station. I wanted to take the first train that was starting, so as to reach my destination in good time. I had a single fixed idea under whose domination I carried out all my movements.

At the station all was in a bustle of life, or should I say a bustle of death? The halls, the waiting-room, the platform, all full of wounded, some of them at their last gasp. And a corresponding crowd of people, sick nurses, soldiers of the sanitary department, sisters of mercy, physicians, men and women of all ranks and occupations, who had come there to see whether the last train had brought one of their relations; or again, to distribute presents, wine and cigars, among the wounded. The officials and servants, busy everywhere in pushing back the folks who were pushing forward. They wanted to send me off too.

“What do you want there? Make way! you are forbidden to give out things to eat and drink. Go to the committee; your presents will be taken in there.”

“No, no,” I said; “I want to set off. When does the next train start?”

It was long before I could get information in reply to this. Most of the departure trains, I found at last, were suspended, in order to keep the line open for the arrival trains which were coming in, one after another, laden with the wounded. For the day there were absolutely no more passenger trains. There was only one with the reserve troops that were being sent forward, and another exclusively reserved for the service of the Patriotic Aid Society, which had to take away a number of physicians and sisters of mercy, and a cargo of necessary material to the neighbourhood of Königgrätz.

“And could not I go by that train?”

“Impossible.”

I heard, ever plainer and more beseeching, Frederick’s cry for help, and could not get to him. It was enough to drive one to despair. Then I espied at the entrance of the hall Baron S----, vice-president of the Patriotic Aid Society, whose acquaintance I had first made in the year of the war of ’59. I hastened to him.

“For God’s sake, Baron S----, help me. Surely you recognise me?”

“Baroness Tilling, the daughter of General Count Althaus. Of course, I have that honour. What can I do to serve you?”

“You are sending off a train to Bohemia. Let me travel by it! My dying husband is pining for me. If you have a heart--and your action surely proves how fair and noble your heart is--do not reject my prayer!”

There were still all kinds of doubts and difficulties, but in the end my wish was granted. Baron S---- called one of the physicians despatched by the Aid Society, and recommended me to his protection as a fellow-traveller.

There was still an hour before our departure. I wanted to go into the waiting-room, but every available space had been turned into an hospital. Wherever you looked, you saw cowering, prostrate, bandaged, pale forms. I could not look at them. The little energy which I possessed I had to save up for my journey, and for its object. I could not venture to expend here anything of the stock of strength, of compassion, or of power of assistance which was at my command--all belonged to him--to him who was calling for me.

Meantime, there was no corner to be found in which a painful scene could be spared me. I had taken refuge on the platform, and there I was brought face to face with the most grievous of all sights, the arrival of a long train, all whose carriages were full of wounded, and the disembarkation of the latter. The less seriously wounded got out by themselves, and managed to get themselves forward; but most had to be supported, or even carried altogether. The available stretchers were at once occupied, and the remaining patients had to wait till the bearers returned, lying on the floor. Before my feet, at the spot where I was sitting on a box, they laid a man who made, without cessation, a continuous gurgling sound. I bent down to speak a word of sympathy to him, but I started back in horror, and covered my face with both hands. The impression on me had been too fearful. It was no longer a human countenance--the lower jaw shot away, one eye welling out, and, added to that, a stifling reek of blood and corruption. I should have liked to jump up and run away, but I was deadly sick, and my head fell back against the wall behind me. “Oh what a cowardly, feeble creature I am,” I said, reproaching myself; “what have I to do in these abodes of misery, where I can do nothing, nothing, to help, and am exposed to such disgust?” Only the thought of Frederick rallied me again. Yes, for him, even if he were in the condition of the poor wretch at my feet, I could bear anything. I would still embrace and kiss him, and all disgust, all horror would be drowned in that all-conquering feeling--love. “Frederick, my Frederick, I am coming.” I repeated half-aloud this fixed thought of mine which had seized me at the time I read Bresser’s letter, and had never quitted me.

A fearful notion passed through my brain--what if this man should be Frederick? I collected all my forces, and looked at him again. No, it was not he.

* * * * *

The anxious hour of waiting did, however, come to an end. They had carried off the poor gurgling fellow. “Lay him on the bench there,” I heard the regimental doctor order; “he is not to be brought back into hospital. He is already three parts dead.” And yet he must surely have still understood the words, this three-parts-dead man; for with a despairing gesture he raised both his hands to heaven.

Now I was sitting in a carriage with the two physicians and four sisters of mercy. It was stiflingly hot, and the carriage was filled with the smell of the hospital and sacristy--carbolic acid and incense. I was unspeakably ill. I leaned back in my corner, and shut my eyes.

The train began to move. That is just the time when every traveller brings before his mind’s eye the object towards which he is being taken. I had often before travelled over the same ground; and then there lay before me a visit to a château full of guests, or a pleasant bathing-place--my wedding-tour, a blessed memory, was made on this same route, to meet with a brilliant and loving reception in the metropolis of “Prussia”. What a different sound that last word has assumed since then! And to-day? What is our object to-day? A battlefield and the hospitals round it--the abodes of death and suffering. I shuddered----

“My dear lady,” said one of the physicians, “I think you are ill yourself. You look so pale and so suffering.”

I looked up; the speaker had a friendly, youthful appearance. I guessed that this was his first service on being recently promoted to the rank of surgeon. It was good of him to devote his first service to this dangerous and laborious duty! I felt grateful to these men who were sitting in the carriage with me for the relief which they were in the act of bringing to the sufferers. And to the self-sacrificing sisters--really of mercy--I paid heartfelt admiration and thanks. Yet what was it that each of these good men had to bestow? An ounce of help for 1000 hundredweights of need. These courageous nuns must, I thought, bear in their hearts for _all_ men that overmastering love which filled mine for my own husband; as I had felt just now that if the fearfully disfigured and repulsive soldier who was gurgling at my feet had been my husband, all my repulsion would have vanished, so these women must have felt towards every brother-man, and surely through the power of a higher love--that for their chosen bridegroom, Christ. But alas! here also these noble women brought an ounce only--one ounce of love to a place where 1000 hundredweights of hatred were raging!

“No, doctor,” I replied to the sympathetic question of the young physician. “I am not ill, only a little exhausted.”

The staff-surgeon now joined in the conversation.

“Your husband, madam, as Baron S---- told me, was wounded at Königgrätz, and you are travelling thither to nurse him. Do you know in which of the villages around he is lying?”

No, I did not know.

“My destination is Königinhof,” I replied. “There a physician awaits me who is a friend of mine--Dr. Bresser.”

“I know him. He was with me when we made a three days’ examination of the field of battle.”

“Examined the field of battle!” I repeated with a shudder. “Let us hear.”

“Yes, yes, doctor, let us hear,” begged one of the nuns. “Our service may bring us into the position of helping at an examination of the kind.”

So the regimental surgeon began his narration. Of course I cannot give the exact words of his description; and, again, he did not speak in a single flow of words, but with frequent interruptions, and almost with reluctance, being only compelled to speak by the persistent questions with which the curious nuns and I assailed him. The narration, however, though sketchy, formed a series of perfect pictures before my mind’s eye, which impressed themselves so on my memory that I can even now make them pass before me. In other circumstances I should not have so clearly comprehended and retained the doctor’s sketches--one always forgets so easily what one has heard or read--but at that time the narratives made almost the impression of an experience. I was in a state of high nervous tension and excitement. My fixed thought of Frederick, which had gained the mastery over me, made me represent Frederick to myself as a person concerned in each scene described; and on that account they remained fixed in my mind as painful things I had myself experienced. Later on I noted down the events related by the regimental surgeon in the red book, just as if they had taken place before my own eyes.

* * * * *

The ambulance was placed behind a hillock which protected it. The battle was raging on the other side. The ground quavered, and the heated air quavered. Clouds of smoke were rising, the artillery was roaring. Now the duty was to send out patrols to repair to the scene of battle, pick out the badly wounded, and bring them in. Is there anything more heroic than such going into the midst of the hissing rain of bullets, in the face of all the horrors of the fight, exposed to all the perils of the fight, without allowing oneself to be penetrated by its wild excitement? According to military conceptions this office is not distinguished. On “the Sanitary Corps” no smart, active, handy, young fellow will serve. No man in it turns the girls’ heads. And a field doctor, even if one is no longer called by that name, but “regimental surgeon,” can he nevertheless hold a comparison with any cavalry lieutenant?

The corporal of the Sanitary Corps ordered his people towards some low ground against which a battery had opened its fire. They marched through the dark veil of the powder smoke and the dust and the scattered earth to a point where a cannon ball, which struck the ground at their feet, bounded in front of them. They had only gone a few paces when they began to meet with wounded men, men slightly wounded, who were crawling to the ambulance, either alone or in pairs, giving each other mutual support. One sank down; but it was not his wounds which had sapped his strength, it was exhaustion. “We have eaten nothing for two days, made a forced march of twelve hours, got into the bivouac, and then, two hours afterwards, came the alarm and the fight.”

The patrol went forward. These men would find their way for themselves, and manage to take their exhausted comrade with them. Aid must be reserved for others still more in need of aid.

On a heap of rocks, forming part of a precipitous declivity, lies a bleeding mass. There are a dozen soldiers lying there. The sanitary corporal stops and bandages one or two of them. But these wounded men are not carried off; those must first be fetched in who have fallen in the centre of the field. Then, perhaps, on their return march, these men can be picked up here.

And again the patrol goes on, nearer to the battle. In ever thicker swarms wounded men are tottering on, painfully creeping forward, singly or together. These are such as can still walk. The contents of the field flasks is distributed amongst these, a bandage is applied to such wounds as are bleeding, and the way to the ambulance pointed out to them. Then forward again. Over the dead--over hillocks of corpses. Many of these dead show traces of horrible agonies. Eyes staring unnaturally, hands grasping the ground, the hair of the beard staring out, teeth pressed together, lips closed spasmodically, legs stiffly outstretched. So they lie.

Now through a hollow way. Here they are lying in heaps, dead and wounded together. The latter greet the sanitary patrol as angels of rescue, and beg and shriek for help. With broken voices, weeping and lamenting, they shout for rescue, for a gulp of water. But alas! the provisions are almost exhausted, and what can these few men do? Each ought to have a hundred arms to be able to rescue them all. Yet each does what he can. Then sounds the prolonged tone of the sanitary call. The men stop and break off from their work of aid. “Do not desert us! Do not desert us!” the poor injured men cry; but the signal horn calls again and again, and this, plainly distinguishable from all other noises, is evidently going further afield. Then also an adjutant comes in hot haste. “Men of the Sanitary Corps?” “At your command,” replies the corporal. “Follow me.”

Evidently a general wounded. It is necessary to obey and leave the rest. “Patience, comrades, and keep a good heart; we will return.” Those who hear and those who say it know that it is not true.

And again they go further: following the adjutant, at the double quick, who spurs on in front and points the way. There is no halting on the way, although on the right hand and on the left resound shrieks of woe and cries for help; and although also many bullets fall among those who are thus hurrying on, and stretch one and another on the ground--only onwards and over everything. Over men writhing with the pain of their wounds, men trodden down by horses tearing over them, or crushed by guns passing over their limbs, and who, seeing the rescue corps, mutilated as they are, rear themselves up for the last time. Over them, over them!

* * * * *

This sort of thing goes on for pages of the red book. The relation that the regimental surgeon gave of the march of a sanitary patrol over the battlefield contains many similar, and even more painful things, such as the description of moments when bullets and shells fall in the midst of the dressers and tear up new wounds; or when the course of the battle brings the fight on to the dressing station itself, right up on to the ambulance, and sucks in the whole _personnel_ of the sanitary corps, with the physicians and with the patients into the whirl of the fighting or fleeing or pursuing troops; or when frightened riderless horses all abroad come across the way, and overturn the stretcher on which a severely wounded man is lying, who is now dashed to the earth all shattered. Or this, the most gruesome picture of all--a farmyard, into which a hundred wounded men had been carried, bandaged, and made comfortable--the poor wretches, glad and thankful that their rescue had been effected. Then a shell came and set the whole on fire. A minute afterwards the hospital was in flames. The shrieks, or rather the howls, which resounded from this abode of despair, and which in its wild agony drowned all the other noises, will remain for ever in the memory of any one who heard it. Ah me! it remains for ever in my memory too, though I did not hear it; for, as the regimental surgeon was telling it, I fancied again that Frederick was there--that I heard his shriek out of the burning place of torture.

“You are getting ill, dear madam,” said the narrator, breaking off. “I must have tried your nerves too much.”

But I had not yet heard enough. I assured him that my momentary weakness was the consequence merely of the heat and of a bad night, and I was not too tired to ask for the rest. I kept feeling still that I had not yet heard enough; that of the infernal circles that were being described, the description had not yet been given of the lowest and most hellish; and when once the thirst for the horrible has been awakened it is impossible to stop till it has been slaked by the most horrible of all. And I was right, for there is something more hideous than a battlefield during the fight, _viz._, one afterwards.

No more thunder of artillery, no more blare of trumpets, no more beat of drum; only the low moans of pain and the rattle of death. In the trampled ground some redly-glimmering pools, lakes of blood; all the crops destroyed, only here and there a piece of land left untouched, and still covered with stubble; the smiling villages of yesterday turned into ruins and rubbish. The trees burned and hacked in the forests, the hedges torn with grape-shot. And on this battle-ground thousands and thousands of men dead and dying--dying without aid. No blossoms of flowers are to be seen on wayside or meadow; but sabres, bayonets, knapsacks, cloaks, overturned ammunition waggons, powder waggons blown into the air, cannon with broken carriages. Near the cannon, whose muzzles are black with smoke, the ground is bloodiest. There the greatest number and the most mangled of dead and half-dead men are lying, literally torn to pieces with shot; and the dead horses, and the half-dead which raise themselves on their feet--such as they have left them--to sink again; then raise themselves up once more and fall down again, till they only raise their head to shriek out their pain-laden death-cry. There is a hollow way quite filled with corpses trodden into the mire. The poor creatures had taken refuge there no doubt to get cover, but a battery has driven over them, and they have been crushed by the horses’ hoofs and the wheels. Many of them are still alive--a pulpy, bleeding mass, but “still alive”.

And yet there is still something more hellish even than all this, and that is the appearance of the most vile scum of humanity, as it shows itself in war--_i.e._, the appearance and the activity of “the hyenas of the battlefield”. “Then slink on the monsters who grope after the spoils of the dead, and bend over the corpses and over the living, mercilessly tearing off their clothes from their bodies. The boots are dragged off the bleeding limbs, the rings off the wounded hands, or to get the ring the finger is simply chopped off, and if a man tries to defend himself from such a sacrifice, he is murdered by these hyenas; or, in order to make him unrecognisable, they dig his eyes out.”

I shrieked out loud at the doctor’s last words. I again saw the whole scene before me, and the eyes into which the hyena was plunging his knife were Frederick’s soft, blue, beloved eyes.

“Pray, forgive me, dear lady, but it was by your own wish----”

“Oh yes; I desire to hear it all. What you are now describing was the night which follows the battle; and these scenes are enacted by the starlight?”

“And by torchlight. The patrols which the conquerors send out to survey the field of battle carry torches and lanterns, and red lanterns are hoisted on signal poles to point out the places where flying hospitals are to be established.”

“And next morning, how does the field look?”

“Almost more fearful still. The contrast between the bright, smiling daylight and the dreadful work of man on which it shines has a doubly-painful effect. At night the entire picture of horror is something ghostly and fantastic. By daylight it is simply hopeless. Now you see for the first time the mass of corpses lying around on the lanes, between the fields, in the ditches, behind the ruins of walls. Everywhere dead bodies--everywhere. Plundered, some of them naked; and just the same with the wounded. These who, in spite of the nightly labour of the Sanitary Corps, are still always lying around in numbers, look pale and collapsed, green or yellow, with fixed and stupefied gaze, or writhing in agonies of pain, they beg any one who comes near to put them to death. Swarms of carrion crows settle on the tops of the trees, and with loud croaks announce the bill of fare of the tempting banquet. Hungry dogs, from the villages around, come running by and lick the blood from their wounds. There are a few hyenas to be seen who are still carrying on their work hastily further afield. And now comes the great interment.”

“Who does that--the Sanitary Corps?”

“How could they suffice for such a mass of work? They have fully enough to do with the wounded.”

“Then troops detailed for the work?”

“No. A crowd of men impressed, or even offering themselves voluntarily--loiterers, baggage people, who are supporting themselves by the market stalls, baggage waggons and so forth, and who now have been hunted away by the force of the military operations, together with the inhabitants of the cottages and huts--to dig trenches--good large ones, of course--wide trenches, for they are not made deep--there is no time for that. Into these the dead bodies are thrown, heads up or heads down just as they come to hand. Or it is done in this way: A heap is made of the corpses, and a foot or two of earth is heaped up over them, and then it has the appearance of a tumulus. In a few days rain comes on and washes the covering off the festering dead bodies! but what does that matter? The nimble, jolly gravediggers do not look so far forward. For jolly, merry workmen they are, that one must allow. Songs are piped out there, and all kinds of dubious jokes made--nay, sometimes a dance of hyenas is danced round the open trench. Whether in several of the bodies that are shovelled into it or are covered with the earth life is still stirring, they give themselves no trouble to think. The thing is inevitable, for the stiff cramp often comes on after wounds. Many who have been saved by accident have told of the danger of being buried alive which they have escaped. But how many are there of those who are not able to tell anything! If a man has once got a foot or two of earth over his mouth he may well hold his tongue.”

“Oh my Frederick, my Frederick!” I groaned in my heart.

“That is the picture of the next morning,” said the surgeon, in conclusion. “Shall I go on further and tell you what happens next evening?”

“I will tell you that, doctor,” I broke in. “One of the two capitals of the powers engaged has received the telegraphic news of the glorious victory. And there in the morning, while the hyena dance is going on round the trench, they are singing in the churches: ‘Now thank we all the Lord,’ and in the evening there the mother or the wife of one of the men buried alive is putting a lighted candle or two in the window-sill because the city is illuminated.”

“Yes, madam, that is the comedy which is being played at home. Meanwhile, on the field of battle, the tragedy is still far from played out by the second sunset. Besides those who are carried to the hospital or the trench, there still remain the ‘missing’. Hidden behind some thick brushwood, in the fields of standing corn, or amongst the ruins of buildings, they have escaped the sight of the bearers or the buriers, and for them begins now the martyrdom of an agony which lasts many days and nights--in the burning heat of midday--in the dark shadows of midnight, crouched on stones and thistles, in the stench of the corpses around and of their own putrefying wounds--a prey, while still quivering, for the feasting vultures.”

* * * * *

What a journey that was! The regimental surgeon had long ceased to speak, but the scenes he had described went on continually presenting themselves before my mind’s eye. To escape from this train of thoughts which persecuted me, I began to look out of the carriage window and try to find distraction in the prospect of the country. But here also pictures of the horrors of war presented themselves to my vision. It is true that no violent devastation had taken place in this neighbourhood, there were no ruined villages smoking there, “the enemy” had effected no lodgment there, but what was raging there was perhaps still worse, _viz._, the _fear_ of the enemy. “The Prussians are coming! the Prussians are coming!” was the signal of alarm through the whole region, and though in travelling past one did not hear the words, yet even from the carriage window their effect was plainly to be seen. Everywhere on all the roads and lanes were people flying, leaving their homes with bag and baggage. Whole trains of waggons were moving inland, filled with bedding, household furniture and provisions, all evidently packed up in the greatest haste. On the same car would be some little pigs, the youngest child, and one or two sacks of potatoes, beside it on foot man and wife and the elder children; that is how I saw a family making their escape as they moved down a road near me. Where were the poor creatures going? They themselves very likely did not know, it was only away, away from “the Prussians”. So men flee from the roaring fire, or the rising flood.

Frequently a train passed us on the other line--wounded, always and again wounded--always once more the ashy faces, the bandaged heads, the arms in slings. At the stations especially one might feed on this sight in all its variations to satiety. All the large or small platforms, on which one usually sees the travelling population waiting or cheerfully standing or walking about, were now filled with prostrate or cowering figures. They were the invalid soldiers who had been brought from the field-or private-hospitals in the neighbourhood, and were waiting for the next train which might serve for the transport of the wounded. There they might have to lie for hours; and who knows how many removals they have already passed through! From the battlefield to the first-aid station, from thence to the ambulance, from thence to a movable hospital, then to the village, and now to the railway, whence they have still the journey to Vienna before them; then from the station to the hospital, and from thence, after all these long tortures, perhaps back to their regiment--perhaps to the churchyard. I was so sorry--so sorry--so terribly sorry for these poor fellows! I should have liked to kneel down before each of them and whisper a few words of compassion to him. But the doctor would not allow me. When we got out at a station he gave me his arm and took me into the stationmaster’s office. There he brought me some wine, or some other refreshment.

The nurses carried on their work of mercy here also. They gave the wounded men drink and food, such as they could hunt up, but often there was nothing to be had. The provisions in the refreshment rooms were generally exhausted. This movement at the stations, especially at the large ones, had a bewildering effect on me. It seemed to me like an evil dream. All this running hither and thither, this confused pell-mell--troops marching out, people flying away, sick-bearers, heaps of bleeding and complaining soldiers, sobbing women wringing their hands, shouts, harsh words of command--crowds on all hands, no free passage anywhere--baggage being sent in, war material, cannons--on another side horses and bellowing cattle, and amongst them the continuous sound of the telegraph--trains rushing through filled, or crowded rather, with the reserves coming up from Vienna. These soldiers were brought along in third and fourth class carriages--nay, also in baggage and cattle trucks--just in the same way as cattle to be slaughtered, and regarding it as a matter of fact, I could not repress the thought: “What else were they in reality? Were they not like the cattle marked out for slaughter--were they not, like them, sent to the great political market, where business is done in food for powder--what the French call _chair-à-canon_?” A mad roar--was it a war song?--pealed out and drowned the rattling sound of the wheels--one minute, and the train was gone. With the speed of the wind it bore a portion of its freight to certain death. Yes, certain death. Even if no individual can say of himself that he is sure to fall, yet a certain percentage of the whole must and will fall. An army marching to the field, as they sweep along the high road on foot or on horseback, may have a touch of antique poetry about it; but for the railroad of our modern day, the symbol of culture binding nations together, to serve as the means for promoting barbarism let loose--that is a thing altogether too inconsistent and horrible. And what a false ring also has the telegraph signal used in this service--that splendid sign of the triumph of the human intellect, which has enabled us to propagate thought with lightning speed from one land to another. All these inventions of the new era which are designed to promote the intercourse of nations, to lighten, beautify, and enrich life, are now misapplied by that old-world principle which aims at dividing the peoples and annihilating life. Our boast before savages is: “Look at our railroads, look at our telegraphs; we are civilised nations”; and then we use these things to increase a hundredfold our own savagery.

My being forced to torture myself with such thoughts as these, and these only, as I waited at the station or pursued my way in the train, made my grief still more deep and bitter. I almost envied those who merely wrung their hands and wept in simple pain, who did not rise up in wrath against the whole hideous comedy, who accused no one--not even that “Lord of armies” of whom yet they believed that He was so, and that it was He who was keeping suspended over their heads the misery that had come to them.

* * * * *

It was late at night when I got to Königinhof. My travelling companions had been obliged to get out at an earlier station. I was alone, in fear and anxiety. How if Dr. Bresser were prevented from coming? What step could I then take in this place? Besides I was, so to speak, broken on the wheel by the journey, quite unnerved by all the experiences of grief and terror that I had passed through. If it had not been for my longing for Frederick I should have wished now for nothing but death. To be able to lie down, go to sleep, and never wake again in a world where things go on so horribly and so madly! But preserve me from one thing at least, to live on and know that Frederick is among the “missing”!

The train stopped. Tired and trembling, I alighted and took out my hand-baggage. I had taken with me a hand-basket, with some linen for myself and charpie and bandages for the wounded, and also my travelling dressing-case. This I had taken quite mechanically, in the belief in which I was brought up that one could not exist without the silver cases and baskets, the soaps and essences, the brushes and combs. Cleanliness, that virtue of the body, corresponding to honour in the soul, that second nature of educated humanity, what a lesson had I now to learn, that there can be no thought of it at such times as these! That, however, is only consistent--war is the negation of education, and therefore all the triumphs of education must be annihilated by it; it is a step backwards into barbarism and must therefore have everything that is barbarous in its train, and amongst others that thing which to the cultured man is so utterly abominable--dirt.

The chest with materials for the hospitals, which I had looked out for Dr. Bresser in Vienna, had been given over with the other chests to the care of the Aid Committee, and who could tell when and where they would be delivered? I had nothing with me except my two pieces of hand-baggage, and a bag of money round my neck containing a few hundred florin notes. With a tottering step I crossed the rails to the platform. There, in spite of the lateness of the hour, the same confusion prevailed as at the other stations, and the same picture was always repeated. Wounded men--wounded men. No, not the same picture, one still worse. Königinhof was a place which was over-full of these unfortunates, there was not an unoccupied room in the whole village, and now they had brought the sick in crowds to the railway station, where, hastily bandaged up, they were lying about everywhere--on the ground--on the stones.

It was a dark, moonless night, the scene was illuminated only by three or four lamps on the pillars. Exhausted and thirsting for sleep, almost for the sleep of death, I sank on the unoccupied corner of a bench and put my luggage on the ground in front of me.

At first I had not the courage to look about me and see whether amongst the number of men who were busy passing to and fro here one might be Dr. Bresser. I was almost persuaded that I should not meet him. It was at least ten chances to one that he would be prevented from coming, or that he would get here at another hour than the one fixed, for there was no longer any regularity in the service, my train had certainly arrived much later than was fixed by the railway regulations. Regulations--another civilised conception, and so it was now set aside along with the rest.

My undertaking seemed to me now a perfect lunacy. This fancied call from Frederick--could I then believe in mystical things of that sort? It certainly had no foundation whatever. Who knows? Frederick was perhaps on his way home, perhaps he was dead; why was I seeking for him here? Another voice began now to call upon me, other arms were stretched out to meet me. Rudolf, my son, how he would have been asking for “mamma” and not been able to get to sleep without his mother’s kiss when he bade “good-night”. Whither should I turn here if I did not find Bresser? And the hope of finding him had of a sudden become as small as the hope of the lucky number among 100,000 lots. Luckily I had my bag of money--the possession of bank notes affords always a means of getting out of difficulties. Mechanically I felt the place where the bag should have been hanging. Good God! the strap by which it had been fastened had been torn off, and the bag was gone--was lost! What a blow! And yet I had not recourse to any complaint against my destiny. I could not lament: “How hard fortune is hitting me!” for, at a time when misfortune was falling in floods on all sides, to complain about a little misfortune of one’s own would have made one blush for one’s own selfishness. And besides, for me there was only one possibility which could alarm me--Frederick’s death; all the rest was nothing.

I began to look at all the people present. No Dr. Bresser. What to do now? To whom to address myself? I stopped one of the men passing----

“Where can I find the stationmaster?”

“You mean the director of the Sick Depôt--Staff-surgeon S----. He is standing there.”

He was not the person I meant, but perhaps he would be able to give me information about Dr. Bresser. I approached the place he pointed out. The staff-surgeon was speaking to a gentleman standing near him.

“It is a pity,” I heard him say. “Here and at Turnau depôts have been founded for all the hospitals of the theatre of war. Gifts are flowing in in masses--linen, food, bandages as much as you can wish, but what is to be done with them? How are they to be unpacked? how sorted? how sent out? We have no hands. We could occupy a hundred active officers.”

I was just going to speak to the staff-surgeon when I saw a man hurrying towards him in whom--O joy!--I recognised Dr. Bresser. In my excitement I fell on the neck of my old family friend.

“You! you! Baroness Tilling! Whatever are you doing here?”

“I am come to help--to nurse. Is not Frederick in one of your hospitals?”

“I have seen nothing of him.”

Was this a disappointment or a relief? I do not know. He was not there, and therefore either dead or unhurt ... besides, Bresser could not possibly know all the wounded in the neighbourhood. I must search through all the hospitals myself.

“And Frau Simon?” I asked next.

“She has been here now some hours. A splendid woman! quick in decision, prudent. Just now she is busied in getting the wounded who are lying here carried into empty railway trucks. She has discovered that in a village near, at Horonewos, the need is the greatest. She is going there, and I am to accompany her.”

“And I also, Dr. Bresser, let me go with you.”

“Baroness Martha, where are you thinking of going? You, so delicate and unaccustomed to such hard, bitterly hard work as this?”

“What else have I got to do here?” I said, interrupting him. “If you are my friend, doctor, help me to carry out my purpose. I will really do anything, perform any service. Introduce me to Frau Simon as a volunteer nurse; but take me with you--for mercy’s sake take me with you.”

“Very well; your will shall be done. The brave lady is there. Come.”

* * * * *

When Dr. Bresser brought me to Frau Simon and introduced me to her as a sick nurse she nodded, but turned away at once to give some order. I was not able to see her features in the dubious light.

Five minutes later we were on our journey to Horonewos. A country waggon which had just brought some wounded from that place served as our conveyance. We sat upon the straw which was perhaps still bloody from its former freight. The soldier who sat by the driver held a lantern which threw a flickering light on our road. “An evil dream--an evil dream.” Such was more and more the impression of what I was going through. The only thing which brought to my mind the reality of my situation, and which at the same time gave me repose, was Dr. Bresser’s company. I had placed my hand in his, and his other arm supported me.

“Lean on me, Baroness Martha, my poor child,” he said softly.

I did lean on him as well as I could, but what a position of torture it was! When one has been accustomed during the whole of one’s life to repose upon cushioned seats, carriages on well-hung springs, and soft beds, how heavy it falls on one all at once, after an exhausting day’s travel, to be sitting on a jolting country cart, the hard planks of which are cushioned only by a layer of bloody straw. And yet I was uninjured. What then must those have felt who were hurried over stock and stone in such a conveyance as that with shattered limbs and their bones sticking out of their skin?

My eyelids closed with a leaden weight. A painful feeling of sleepiness tortured me. Sleep was indeed impossible from the discomfort of my position--every limb was aching--and from the excitement of my nerves, but the somnolence which I could not shake off had the more terrible effect on me. Thoughts and images, as confused as the visions of fever, whirled through my brain. All the scenes of horror which the regimental surgeon had described repeated themselves before my spirit, partly in the very words of the narrator, partly as delusions of sight and hearing, called up by those words. I kept seeing the gravediggers shovelling in the dead, saw the hyenas sneaking up, heard the shrieks of those who were being sacrificed in the burning lazaretto, and between whiles words came in as if they were pronounced aloud in the accents of the regimental surgeon, such as carrion crows, market folks, sanitary patrols. That, however, did not prevent me from hearing the conversation that was being carried on half aloud by my companions in the cart.

“A part of the routed army fled to Königgrätz,” Dr. Bresser said; “but the fortress was closed and the fugitives were fired on from the walls--especially the Saxons, who in the twilight were mistaken for Prussians. Hundreds plunged into the ditches of the fort and were drowned. The flight was checked by the Elbe, and the disorder reached its height. The bridges were so overcrowded by horses and cannon that the infantry could find no room. Thousands flung themselves into the Elbe--even the wounded.”

“It must be a horrible state of things at Horonewos,” said Frau Simon. “All abandoned by its inhabitants--village and castle. The whole of the inner rooms destroyed and yet filled with helpless wounded men. What joy will the refreshments we are bringing give the wretched men! But it will not be enough--not enough!”

“And our medical aid is also not enough,” added Dr. Bresser. “There should be a hundred of us, in order to do what is required; we are in want of instruments and medicines; and would even these help us? The overcrowding of these places is such as to threaten the outbreak of dangerous epidemics. The first care is always this, to send away as many wounded as possible, but their condition is usually such that no conscientious man would take the responsibility of their transport--to send them off means to kill them, to leave them there means to introduce hospital gangrene--a sad alternative! The horrors and miseries I have seen in these days since the battle of Königgrätz exceed all conception. You must prepare yourself for the worst, Frau Simon.”

“I have the experience of many years and courage. The greater the misery, the higher rises my determination.”

“I know, your fame has preceded you. I, on the contrary, when I see so much misery feel all my courage sink, and it strikes me to the heart. To hear hundreds--nay, thousands--of men in want of help, praying for help, and not to be able to help--it is hideous! In all these ambulances which have been set up in the most hasty way around the field of battle we have been in want of restoratives--above all things, there is no water. Most of the wells around have been made unserviceable by the inhabitants, far and wide there is not a piece of bread to be obtained. All rooms that have a roof over them, churches, country houses, châteaux, huts, all are filled with sick. Everything in the shape of a carriage has been sent off with its load of wounded. The roads in all directions are covered with such carts of hell, for in truth the sufferings carried by those wheels are hellish. There they lie--officers, petty officers, soldiers, disfigured by dirt and dust and blood till they are unrecognisable--with wounds for which there is no human help available, uttering cries of pain, shrieks which are hardly human; and yet those who can still cry are not the most pitiable.”

“Then many die on the way.”

“Certainly, or after they are unloaded they finish quietly and unobserved on the first bundle of straw on which they have been left to die. Some quietly, but others raving and raging in a desperate fight with Death, uttering such curses as might make your hair stand on end. It must have been curses like these that that Mr. Twining of London heard who made the following proposal at the Geneva Conference: ‘Would it not be well, if the condition of a wounded man leaves not the slightest hope of recovery, in such a case to give him first the consolations of religion, then, as far as the circumstances allow, leave him a moment for reflection and then put an end to his agony in the least painful way possible? This would prevent his dying a few moments later, with fever in his brain, and perhaps blasphemies against God on his tongue.’”

“How unchristian!” cried Frau Simon.

“What, to give him the _coup de grâce_?”

“No, but the idea that a blasphemous expression wrung from the soul of a man in the midst of unbearable tortures could imperil his soul. The Christian’s God is not so unjust as that, and assuredly will take every fallen warrior into His grace.”

“Mahomet’s paradise was assured to every Mussulman who had killed a Christian,” replied Bresser. “Believe me, my dear Frau Simon, all those deities who have been represented as leaders of wars, and whose assistance and blessing the priests and commanders promise as the wages of murder, all of them are as deaf to blasphemies as to prayers. Look up there; that star of the first magnitude, with reddish light, it is only seen twinkling or rather shining, for it does not twinkle, over our heads every second year, that is the planet Mars, the star dedicated to the God of War, that god who was so feared and reverenced in old times that he had by far more temples than the Goddess of Love. Of old on the field of Marathon, in the narrow pass of Thermopylæ, that star shed a bloody light on the battles of men, and to him rose up the curses of the fallen who accused him of their misfortune, while he indifferent and peaceful, then as now, was circling round the sun. Hostile stars? there are no such things. Man has no enemy except man, but he is savage enough. And no other friend either,” added Bresser after a short pause; “of that you yourself are giving an example, magnanimous lady. You are----”

“O doctor,” interrupted Frau Simon; “look there, that flame on the horizon, it is surely a village in flames----”

I opened my eyes and saw the red glare.

“No,” said Dr. Bresser, “it is the moon rising.”