We gave the gentle Saxon the poor honor of a separate grave, and as soon after the siege as I could get a letter out I wrote to his father, sending the few little trinkets that had been trusted to my keeping.  In the answer and thanks of the lonely old man—­for he was now widowed and childless—­there was something almost as sad as the death I have been telling you of.  He could not hear enough of his son’s last days, and our correspondence ceased only when my minutest details had been given.

I have already told you of our last sortie, and really of our last service as a corps.  A few days after the loss of our coffee-pot the armistice was declared.  Those were sad times.  I can’t tell you of the despair of that whole city.  It makes me dizzy even to remember it.  When the people saw that their endurance, suffering, starvation for those long months had been unavailing, there were no bounds to their speech or acts.  The two words, “Treason!” and “Bread!” were heard everywhere.  Men wept like children.  Many actually lay down and died, half starved, half heartbroken.  These things will never be written up—­they never can be written up.  It needed hope with the scant food so many had lived on.  The city at the mercy of the conquerors—­But there is no use in trying to recall those wild, miserable days.  The air was charged with the common despair.  I saw the burning of the Tuileries and all the horrors of the Commune, but nothing ever had such an effect upon me as that.

I must, however, before I draw these reminiscences to a close, tell you about Major O’Flynn, of Her Majesty’s Indian army.  It was he who brought the pumpkin into camp at Chatillon.  That he should have risked his life most recklessly in doing it was nothing odd, as you will soon learn.  It was only a little droll that he should have taken just that time and place to gratify his curiosity.  He had heard Americans talk a great deal about pumpkin-pies, and he wanted to know if they were as good as their reputation; so he took the first chance and the first pumpkin that came in his way.  Major Thomas Vincent O’Flynn, of Her Majesty’s Indian army, was of course an Irishman.  He was tall, tawny, impassive as any Englishman; modest and mild-mannered in camp, and in the field utterly unconscious of bullets or shell.  He had married a Hindoo lady, whom we called the Begum.  She was just as excitable as he was impassive.  He owned a pair of splendid black horses, which he generally drove himself in one of our wagons.  Sometimes, however, he rode, as estafette or orderly, a splendid sorrel stallion, also his property; and this stallion, “Garryowen” by name, was the pride and delight of our hearts, the pet of our camp.  The major had a poodle dog too, distinct from the Begum’s.  It was generosity rather than effeminacy on his part to have this dog, for he bought it to save its life:  the former owners were about to eat it when the major came to the rescue.  The dog was white, and our Indian