The commander and his staff were just leaving, and they were in a big hurry.  We knew the reason for their hurry, for since daylight the sound of heavy firing to the south and southwest, across the border in the neighborhood of Maubeuge, had been plainly audible.  Officers in long gray overcoats with facings of blue, green, black, yellow and four shades of red—­depending on the branches of the service to which they belonged—­were piling into automobiles and scooting away.

As we sat on a wooden bench before the prince’s villa, waiting for further instructions from our friend of the night before—­meaning by that the colonel who could not take a joke, but could make one of his own—­a tall, slender young man of about twenty-four, with a little silky mustache and a long, vulpine nose, came striding across the square with long steps.  As nearly as we could tell, he wore a colonel’s shoulder straps; and, aside from the fact that he seemed exceedingly youthful to be a colonel, we were astonished at the deference that was paid him by those of higher rank, who stood about waiting for their cars.  Generals, and the like, even grizzled old generals with breasts full of decorations, bowed and clicked before him; and when he, smiling broadly, insisted on shaking hands with all of them, some of the group seemed overcome with gratification.

Presently a sort of family resemblance in his face to some one whose picture we had seen often somewhere began to impress itself on us, and we wondered who he was; but, being rather out of the setting ourselves, none of us cared to ask.  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.  It was interesting to listen as his voice changed from a bellow to a croon, and back again a moment later to a bellow.  With training he might have made an opera singer—­he had such a vocal range and such perfect control over it.  This Lieutenant Mittendorfer introduced himself to our attention by coming smartly up and saying there had been a delay about requisitioning an automobile for our use; but he thought the car would be along very shortly—­and would the American gentlemen be so good as to wait?  There being nothing else to do, we decided to do as he suggested.