With Frederick the Great Part 13

"Really! You are lucky in getting onto Keith's staff."

"He is a cousin of my mother's," Fergus said.

"And he made you lieutenant, and aide-de-camp, at once."

"No. I was first a cornet, but I was promoted at Dresden. The king had given strict orders about plundering, and it happened that I came upon some marauders at their work, and had the good fortune to rescue a gentleman of some importance from their hands; and the king, who was furious at his orders being disobeyed, himself promoted me.

"I had been lucky enough to get myself wounded in the affair. As I lost a good deal of blood, I looked no doubt a good deal worse than I was, and I expect that had a good deal to do with my getting the step."

"Well, you are a lucky fellow. I was eight years a cornet before I got promoted."

"I think my bad luck, in getting captured, balances my good fortune in being promoted so soon."

"To some extent perhaps it does, but you will get the benefit when you return. No doubt Fritz was watching you, as you rode. He must have seen our cavalry coming down the slope, before the man in command of your squadrons could have done so; and must have felt that they were lost, unless his orders were received. He must have been relieved, indeed, when he saw you reach them."

This had indeed been the case. The king and marshal had both been watching through their gla.s.ses the Prussian cavalry, and marked how the ground behind them was dotted thickly with the bodies of horses and men.

"Will they never stop?" the king said impatiently. "These cavalry men are always getting into sc.r.a.pes with their impetuosity. Gorlitz must have known that he was only sent forward to ascertain the position of the Austrians, and not to fight their whole army. He ought to have turned, as soon as that crossfire of their batteries opened upon them."

"He knew that your majesty and the whole army would be watching him, sire," Keith said quietly; "and I fancy that, under such circ.u.mstances, few cavalry men would draw rein till they had done something worthy of themselves."

At this moment the fog wreath moved away.

"See," the king exclaimed, "there is a great body of Austrian cavalry moving along behind Sulowitz. That rise behind the village must hide them from our men.

"Where is your messenger, Keith?"

"There he goes, sire. He is well out of the valley now and, by the pace he is riding at, he won't be long before he reaches them."

"He won't reach them at all," the king said curtly, a minute later.

"See, there is a squadron of horse riding out from Lobositz, to cut him off. No doubt they guess what his errand is."

"I see them, sire, and he must see them, too. He is checking his horse, for his orderly is coming up to him."

"Then the cavalry will be lost," the king said. "The enemy's batteries are playing havoc with them, and they will have the Austrians down upon them in a few minutes.

"Ah! I expect Gorlitz sees them now. Our men are halting, and forming up. I suppose he means to charge the Austrians when they come up, but there are three to one against him. He is lost."

"There is hope yet, sire," Keith said, as he again turned his gla.s.s on Fergus. "My aide-de-camp is going to charge the Austrian squadron."

"So he is!" the king exclaimed, lowering his gla.s.s, for the distance was little more than half a mile from the spot where he stood. "He must be mad."

"It is possible he may do it, sire. His orderly is riding boot to boot beside him. You know already that he is a good swordsman. He will have the advantage that the enemy won't dream of his attacking them, and the rate at which they are riding will help them through.

"There he goes!" and he raised the gla.s.s again to his eye. "Bravo!

They are through the first troop, and still together. Now they are at it.

"There, sire, they are through the second troop. Bravo, Fergus!"

The king made no remark until he saw the Austrian squadron draw rein. Then he said:

"Thank G.o.d, he has saved the cavalry! It was a glorious deed.

Marshal Keith, make out his commission as a captain, today."

"He is very young, sire," the marshal said hesitatingly.

"By Heaven, sir, I would promote him if he were an infant in arms!"

the king replied. "Why, Keith, the loss of half our cavalry would have crippled us, and cavalry men are not made in a day.

"There, he has reached them now. I see they are wheeling. Well and quickly done! Yes, they won't be overtaken; but three minutes later, and not a man would have come back.

"Colonel Rogner," he said to one of the group of officers behind him, "you will please ride down and meet the cavalry, when they come in, and convey to Lieutenant Drummond my highest satisfaction at the gallant manner in which he has carried out my orders. You will also inform General Gorlitz that, in my opinion, he pushed his reconnaissance much too far; but that I am well content with the bravery shown by the troops, and at the manner in which he drew them off on receipt of my order."

In five-and-twenty minutes the colonel returned, and said:

"I regret to say, your majesty, that Lieutenant Drummond is missing. I have inquired among the officers and find that, as he was following General Gorlitz, he and his horse suddenly pitched forward and lay without movement. Evidently the horse was killed by a cannon shot, but whether Mr. Drummond was also killed, they could not say."

"We must hope not," the king said warmly. "I would not lose so gallant a young officer, for a great deal.

"Keith, if we take Lobositz today, let a most careful search be made, over the ground the cavalry pa.s.sed, for his body. If it is found, so much the worse. If not, it will be a proof that he is either wounded or unhurt, and that he has been carried off by the Austrian cavalry; who pa.s.sed over the same ground as ours, and who certainly would not trouble themselves to carry off his body."

Chapter 6: A Prisoner.

The next morning a horse was brought round for Fergus, and he at once started, under the escort of a captain and Lieutenant Kerr and fifty troopers, with thirteen other officers taken prisoners at Lobositz. Seven hundred rank and file had also been captured.

These, however, were to march under an infantry escort on the following day. Fergus afterwards learned that sixteen officers, of whom eleven belonged to the cavalry, had been killed; and eighty-one officers and about eighteen hundred men wounded in the desperate fighting at Lobositz.

Fergus found that among the Austrians the battle of the previous day was considered a victory, although they had lost their advanced post at Lobositz.

"I cannot say it seemed so to me," he said to the lieutenant, as they rode away from the camp.

"Why, we have prevented the king from penetrating into Bohemia."

"But the king could have done that three days ago, without fighting a battle," Fergus said; "just as Schwerin did at Koeniggraetz.

There would have been no need to have marched night and day across the mountains, in order to give battle to an army nearly twice the strength of his own. His object was to prevent you from drawing off the Saxons, and in that he perfectly succeeded."

"Oh, there are other ways of doing that! We had only to keep along the other side of the Elbe until we faced Pirna, then they could have joined us."

"It sounds easy," Fergus laughed, "but it would not be so easy to execute. These mountain defiles are terrible, and you may be sure that the king will not be idle while you and the Saxons are marching to meet each other.

"However, it was a hard-fought battle, and I should think that our loss must be quite as great as yours; for your artillery must have played terrible havoc among our infantry, as they marched to the a.s.sault of the village."

"Yes. I hear this morning that we have lost about a hundred and twenty officers killed and wounded, and about two thousand one hundred and fifty men, and nearly seven hundred missing or prisoners. What your loss is, of course, I can't say."

"I cannot understand your taking so many prisoners," Fergus said.