Two weeks later, in Aix-la-Chapelle, I was
passing a shop and saw his likeness in full uniform on a souvenir
postcard in the window. It was Prince August Wilhelm, fourth son of the
Kaiser; and we had seen him as he was about getting his first taste of
being under fire by the enemy.
Pretty soon he was gone and our colonel was gone, and nearly everybody
else was gone too; Companies of infantry and cavalry fell in and moved
off, and a belated battery of field artillery rumbled out of sight up
the twisting main street. The field postoffice staff, the field
telegraph staff, the Red Cross corps and the wagon trains followed in
due turn, leaving behind only a small squad to hold the town--and us.
A tall young lieutenant was in charge of the handful who remained; and,
by the same token, as was to transpire, he was also in charge of us. He
was built for a football player, and he had shoulders like a Cyclops,
and his family name was Mittendorfer. He never spoke to his men except
to roar at them like a raging lion, and he never addressed us except to
coo as softly as the mourning dove.
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