He stayed to breathe a moment, and then said: "If any one will come with me, we might bring in one or two more poor devils who have still life in them." He was soon surrounded by five or six figures, and he was going with them to search for wounded in the rain of balls which was falling, when with a sudden cry of pain he sank backward.

A ball had struck his right leg.

His volunteers put him back into the sandpit, and no one thought any more either of the colors or the wounded who lay out there under the fire from the factory.

At this moment too an adjutant brought the command to retreat, which the remains of the wearied battalion slowly began, to obey under the command of a sub-officer.
The captain, who could not be moved, was left in a peasant's hut in the village of Messigny, but as Wilhelm's injury was only a flesh wound, and he was merely exhausted from loss of blood, he was sent with the others to Tonnerre, where he arrived the next day, after a journey of great suffering.
The schoolhouse was turned into an infirmary, many of the rooms holding nearly a hundred and twenty beds.

Wilhelm was put into a little room, which he shared with one French and two German officers.