They Would Compound For A Defeat At First, Provided The War
Were Likely To Be Prolonged.
In the meantime, reinforcements continue to
arrive daily for their army.
We hear but little news of the intentions or
movements of the other Allies; it being forbidden to enter into political
discussions, it is difficult to ascertain the true state of affairs.
We continued our journey through Charleroy and Binch to this place. At a
small village between Binch and Mons we were stopped by a sentinel at a
Prussian outpost and our passports demanded. Neither the sentinel, however,
nor the sergeant, nor any of the soldiers present, could read or understand
French, in which language the passport was drawn up; but the sergeant told
me that the officers were in a house about a quarter of a mile distant and
that he would conduct me thither, but that he himself could not presume to
let us pass, from not knowing the tenor of our passport. I went accordingly
with the sergeant to this house, There I found the officer commanding the
piquet and several others sitting at table, carousing with beer and tobacco
and nearly invisible from the clouds of smoke which pervaded the room. I
explained to the officer who we were and requested him to put on the
passport his visa in the German language, so that the non-commissioned
officers at the various posts through which we might pass would be able to
understand it and let us pass without hindrance.
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