第10章

Will it do anything for the Anglo-Saxon peoples?Probably nottill we have pacified the Philippines and South Africa.WeAmericans are still apparently in love with fighting, though theEnglish are apparently not so much so; and as it is always wellto face the facts, I will transfer to my page some facts offighting from this graphic book, which the read may apply to theactualities in the Philippines, with a little imagination.Theyare taken from a letter written to the heroine by her secondhusband after one of the Austrian defeats."The people pouredboiling water and oil on the Prussians from the windows of thehouses at ----....The village is ours--no, it is the enemy's,now ours again--and yet once more the enemy's; but it is nolonger a village, but a smoking mass of ruins of houses....Onefamily has remained behind...an old married couple and theirdaughter, the latter in childbed.The husband is serving in ourregiment....Poor devil! he got there just in time to see themother and child die; a shell had exploded under their bed....Isaw a breastwork there which was formed of corpses.Thedefenders had heaped all the slain who were lying near, in order,from that rampart, to fire over at their assailants.I shallsurely never forget that wall in my life.A man who formed oneof its bricks was still alive, and was waving his arm....Whatis happening there?The execution party is drawn out.Has a spybeen caught?Seventeen this time.There they come, in fourranks, each one of four men, surrounded by a square of soldiers.

The condemned men step out, with their heads down.Behind comesa cart with a corpse in it, and bound to the corpse the deadman's son, a boy of twelve, also condemned....Steep, rockyheights; Jaegers, nimble as cats, climbing up them....Some ofthem, who are hit by the enemy's shot, suddenly stretch out boththeir arms, let their muskets fall, and, with their heads fallingbackwards, drop off the height, step by step, from one rockypoint to another, smashing their limbs to pieces.I saw ahorseman at some distance, obliquely behind me, at whose side ashell burst.His horse swerved aside and came against the tailof mind, then shot past me.The man sat still in the saddle, buta fragment of the shell had ripped his belly open and torn outall the intestines.The upper part of his body was held to thelower only by the spine.From the ribs to the thighs nothing butone great, bleeding cavity.A short distance farther he fell tothe ground, one foot still clinging in the stirrup, and thegalloping horse dragging him on over the stony soil....Anotherstreet fight in the little town of Saar....In the middle of thesquare stands a high pillar of the Virgin.The mother of Godholds her child in one arm, and stretches the other out inblessing....Here the fight was prolonged, man to man.Theywere hacking at me, I laying about me on all sides....APrussian dragoon, strong as Goliath, tore one of our officers (apretty, dandified lieutenant--how many girls are, perhaps, madafter him?) out of his saddle and split his skull at the feet ofthe Virgin's pillar.The gentle saint looked on unmoved.

Another of the enemy's dragoons--a Goliath, too--seized, justbefore me almost, my right-hand man, and bent him backwards inhis saddle so powerfully that he broke his back--I myself heardit crack.To this the Madonna gave her blessing also."