THE DANES IN CAMP:* [FIRST NOTICE.]
OR Easter Monday morning, the 28th of March, there was hurry and confusion at Sonderborg. The moment seemed to have come for the 'final attack. About three in the morning every inhabitant of those narrow streets was awakened by the sharp note of the "alarm," and the ear, almost dead to the continuous booming of the Broager batteries, listened more eagerly,-and the breath was drawn more quickly, as the dull roar of the cannonade seemed, as it were, to sparkle up into the lighter, sharper sound-of musketry. There were indeed some moments of anxiety in the front. For some reason hitherto unexplained it had been thought wise to throw a small part of-the besieging -army with a sudden onset upon the batteries ; the attempt was vigorously met, and as vigor- ously repelled. The affair began about two hours before daybreak, and by eight it was a victory for the Danes. Again and again the work was -assaulted, and every time the assailants were gallantly repulsed. In the end—the fact is vouched for—the Prussian troops, or some of them, refused to advance any more. So by breakfast-time the contest was over ; but while-it lasted, say the officers, it was no child's play.
Now there was at Senderborg .at this time among the -small party of Englishmen a certain young Swell. He had already ob- tained some name among the array brappearing on all occasions in an apparel made chiefly of buff leather, of which costume being not unobservant the Danish soldiers had for some days christened him the "English Robinson Crusoe." He, with two others of equally ardent nature, had come up to the batteries on the fird • The Danes in cauip. Letters from SOnderborg. By Auberon Herbert. London: Saunders and Otley. It64. alarm, like David, to see the battle. They stood at a breastwork, and looked on. An assault was being made, the rattle of musketry was thick and close, a private soldier fell wounded a little way in front of the breastwork, out rushes the Swell, through the hail of bullets, with an ambulance-soldier at his heels. But being a Swell, he was of course shortsighted, and in the excitement of the mo- ment he forgot to keep his eye on the man, and when he reached the supposed spot the wounded soldier seemed to have disappeared. Up goes the eyeglass, and our Swell carefully examines the ground. After an attentive survey he thinks he has it, and makes for a soldier who is stretched on the earth, who is unfortunately, how- ever, the wrong man, and is in fact a Danish skirmisher lying on his face in perfect soundness of limb, and waiting for a shot. The Swell takes him by the leg to lift him, the skirmisher ungratefully kicks out. "Get in," says the Swell ;—the bullets were coming in thick. "Get away," says the skirmisher. "Come along, poor fellow," says the Swell, "here's the stretcher." "Go to the devil," roars the skirmisher. The situation began to be em- barrassing. Happily, however, at this moment the soldier came up with the stretcher, and pointed out the right man, and together they carried him through the fierce fire into cover. But when it was all over, and the men came back to the town, and the Swell and his friends with them, the soldiers lined the parapets and cheered him to the echo ; and they pressed around him as he walked along to grasp his hand ; and the English Robinson Crusoe was a hero in men's mouths all that day, and for many days after, when the battle was talked over in the camp.
That this was the exact way in which the event of which we have been speaking occurred we cannot distinctly state from our own observation ; but-what we can personally vouch for is the- fact that this is the way in which the story was told next day in the camp. A narrative of the siege by the hero of the story him- self we should expect to find somewhat rose-coloured,—whoever yet sat down in the evening to criticize with calm impartiality the character of the men who have been cheering him out of the town in the morning? To judge Manlius in sight of the Capitol maybe a difficult matter enough, but happy the Roman soldier who came- on the morning after the attack on the Capitol before the tribunal of Manlius.
The Hon. Auberon Herbert arrived at Sonderborg on the even- ing of the 20th of March, and left it on the morning of the 30th. He was fortunate enough to come in for an interesting portion. of the siege, though he missed by four days the cruel bombard- ment of the town, and by some weeks the final crisis. He certainly made the most of his opportunities, and his narrative is charmingly fresh and naïf We propose to defer a more detailed review of the little book for another week, and at present can only commend it heartily to our readers. It is hardly necessary to re- mark that it is Danish all over. "I remain constant," says Mr. Herbert, "to my belief that I have both visited Arcadia and seen a patriot army." But the author thoroughly means what he says, and we are not disposed to contradict him. If those grand patient fellows, who sat day after day packed in the trenches
waiting quietly to be hit by shells, smoking their big china pipes, lazily turning over the sod, laughing, sleeping, singing, dying, big, docile, honest, indomitable,—if that was not a patriot army we despair of ever seeing one.
Mr. Herbert describes the attack of the 28th, and gives his own recollections of the scene. The story in his pages is an interesting one. But it is'remarkable that for some reason or other he omits the little episode we described above, and there is not any mention. at all in hismarrative of the " EnglishRobinson Crusoe."
Previous page
