Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/262

 The sewer was a tube of brick masonry, sufficiently high and wide for us to move through it with bent knees and curved backs, half walking, half crawling. The water running through the sewer covered our feet and ankles. As we penetrated into the interior we found, here and there, narrow manholes covered on top with iron gratings, through which air and, during the day, some light came down. At such places we rested a moment and stretched ourselves out so as to get our spines into shape again. According to our calculation we should have reached about the middle of the sewer, when I happened to strike my foot against a piece of board lying in the water, which was just long enough to be squeezed between the walls of the sewer so that it served us as a sort of bench to sit upon. Upon this bench, which made our condition a little more comfortable, we huddled together for a longer rest.

Until then the constant movement to which we had been compelled had hardly permitted us to survey our situation. Now, sitting on the bench, we had leisure enough to collect our thoughts and to hold council as to what was further to be done. During the siege I had had frequent opportunity to observe the immediate surroundings of the fortress, and I therefore pretty well knew the ground on which the sewer emptied outside. I proposed to my companions that we should remain on the bench until about midnight, then leave the sewer and seek cover in a field planted with corn, which I knew to be in the neighborhood. From there we could, if the sky was tolerably clear, overlook a little part of the road to Steinmauern, a village distant about an hour's walk from Rastatt, on the bank of the Rhine, and assure ourselves whether we might leave the protection of the cornfield without danger. And so, seeking cover from time to time in order to reconnoiter the road ahead of us, we might hope before daybreak to reach Steinmauern and there