The Prussian
corps was still streaming past. It was easy to see that they had
made a terrible march and had little food, for the faces of the
men were ghastly, and they were plastered from head to foot with
mud from their falls upon the foul and slippery roads. Yet,
spent as they were, their spirit was excellent, and they pushed
and hauled at the gun-carriages when the wheels sank up to the
axles in the mire, and the weary horses were floundering
knee-deep unable to draw them through.
The officers rode up and down the column encouraging the more
active with words of praise, and the laggards with blows from the
flat of their swords. All the time from over the wood in front
of them there came the tremendous roar of the battle, as if all
the rivers on earth had united in one gigantic cataract, booming
and crashing in a mighty fall. Like the spray of the cataract
was the long veil of smoke which rose high over the trees.
The officers pointed to it with their swords, and with hoarse
cries from their parched lips the mud-stained men pushed onward
to the battle.
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