by G. A. Henty
“I think with that story we could keep to the plan of going up through Ratisbon. It would be immensely shorter, and the story would be more probable than that we should make such a big detour to get home.”
“Yes, I should think that would do well,” Ritzer said, “and will shorten the way by two hundred miles. But after leaving Passau, I should think that we had better not follow the direct road until we get to Ratisbon.
“I grant that as far as that town we ought to be quite safe, for there is no chance of their finding out that we have escaped until eight o’clock in the morning; then our colonel will have to report the matter to the commandant in the town. No doubt he will send off a small party of cavalry, by the Freyberg road to Budweis, to order the authorities there to keep a sharp lookout for three men passing north. But I doubt very much whether they will think of sending in this direction. The escape of three Prussian officers is, after all, no very important matter. Still, one cannot be too careful, for possibly the commandant may send to Munich, Ratisbon, and Vienna.
“It is more likely, however, that the search will be made principally in and round Linz. They will feel quite sure that we cannot possibly have obtained any disguises, and must have gone off in our undergarments; and they will reckon that we should naturally have hidden up in some outhouse, or country loft, until we could find some opportunity for obtaining clothes. Most likely the barge went on this morning, before the alarm had been given; but even if it didn’t, boatmen would not be likely to hear of the escape of three prisoners.
“No, I think beyond Passau we shall be quite safe, as far as pursuit goes; but it will be best to halt there only long enough to take a good meal, and then to go on for a bit, and stop at some quiet riverside village.”
“I don’t think I shall be able to go very far,” Ritzer said. “These boots are a great deal too large for me, and are chafing my feet horribly. The road is good and level; and I was thinking, just now, of taking them off and carrying them.”
“That would be the best way, by far,” Fergus said. “I should think at Passau we are sure to find a boat going up to Ratisbon, and that will settle the difficulty.”
The distance was some thirty miles and, making one or two halts for a rest, they reached Passau just as morning was breaking. In a short time the little inns by the river opened their doors, and the riverside was astir. They went into one of the inns and ate a hearty meal, then they went down to the waterside, and found that there were several country boats going up the river. They soon bargained for a passage, and had just time to buy a basket of bread, sausage, and cheese, with half a dozen bottles of wine, before the boat started. There were no other passengers on board and, telling the story they had agreed upon, they were soon on good terms with the boatmen.
Including the windings of the river, it was some eighty miles to Ratisbon. The boat was towed by two horses, and glided pleasantly along, taking three days on the passage. They bought food at the villages where the craft lay up for the night, and arrived at Ratisbon at nine o’clock in the evening. There they found no difficulty in obtaining a lodging at a small inn, where no questions, whatever, were asked.
A short day’s journey took them to Neumarkt, a tramp of upwards of twenty miles. It was a longer journey on to Bamberg, and two days later, to their satisfaction, they entered Coburg.
They were now out of Bavaria, and had escaped all difficulties as to the dialect far better than they had anticipated, never having been asked any questions since they left the boat at Ratisbon. They had now only to say that they were on their way to join the Confederate army that was again being gathered; but they preferred avoiding all questions, by walking by night and resting at little wayside inns during the day. Avoiding all towns, for the troops were beginning to move, they crossed the Saxon frontier three days after leaving Coburg, and then travelled by easy stages to Dresden.
Here they went straight to the headquarters of the commandant of the town, and reported themselves to him. Fergus had personal acquaintances on his staff, and had no difficulty in obtaining, for himself and his companions, an advance of a portion of the pay due to them, in order that they might obtain new outfits.
This took a couple of days, and the two captains then said goodbye to Fergus, with many warm acknowledgments for the manner in which he had enabled them to regain their freedom—expressions all the more earnest since they heard that the Austrians had decided that, in future, they would make no exchanges whatever of prisoners—and started to rejoin their regiments.
Fergus felt strangely lonely when they had left him. The king was at Breslau. Keith was lying dead in Hochkirch. What had become of Lindsay he knew not, nor did he know to whom he ought to report himself, or where Karl might be with his remaining charger and belongings. Hitherto at Dresden he had felt at home. Now, save for Count Eulenfurst and his family, he was a stranger in the place.
Naturally, therefore, he went out to their chateau. Here he was received with the same warmth as usual.
“Of course we heard of your capture at Hochkirch,” the count said, “though not for many weeks afterwards. We were alarmed when the news came of the marshal’s death, for as it was upon his division that the brunt of the battle had fallen, we feared greatly for you. At last came the list the Austrians had sent in of the prisoners they had taken, and we were delighted to see your name in it; though, as the Austrians have been so chary of late of exchanging prisoners, we feared that we might not see you for some time. However, remembering how you got out of Spielberg, we did not despair of seeing you back in the spring.
“Thirza was especially confident. I believe she conceives you capable of achieving impossibilities. However, you have justified her faith in you.
“Supper will be served in a few minutes, and as no doubt your story is, as usual, a long one, we will not begin it until we have finished the meal. But tell us first, how were you captured?”
“I was riding through the mist to find the marshal; whom I had not seen for two hours, as I was with the regiment that defended the church at Hochkirch, and then cut its way out through the Austrians. The mist was so thick that I could not see ten yards ahead, and rode plump into an Austrian battalion. They fired a volley that killed poor Turk, and before I could get on my feet I was surrounded and taken prisoner—not a very heroic way, I must admit.”
“A much pleasanter way, though, than that of being badly wounded, and so found on the field by the enemy,” the countess said; “and you were fortunate, indeed, in getting through that terrible battle unhurt.”
“I was, indeed, countess; but I would far rather have lost a limb than my dear friend and relation, the marshal. I was allowed to attend his funeral the next day. The Austrians paid him every honour and, though I have mourned for him most deeply, I cannot but feel that it was the death he would himself have chosen. He had been ailing for some months, and had twice been obliged to leave his command and rest. It would, in any case, probably have been his last campaign; and after such a wonderfully adventurous life as he had led, he would have felt being laid upon the shelf sorely.”
“His elder brother—Earl Marischal in Scotland, is he not?—who has been governor for some years at Neufchatel, is with the king at Breslau, at present. They say the king was greatly affected at the loss of the marshal who, since Schwerin’s death, has been his most trusted general.”
“I have never seen the marshal’s brother,” Fergus said, “though I know that they were greatly attached to each other. I hope that he will be at Breslau when I get there. I shall go and report myself to the king, after I have had a few days’ rest here. At present I seem altogether unattached. The marshal’s staff is, of course, broken up; but as I served on the king’s own staff twice, during the last campaign, I trust that he will put me on it again.”
“That he will do, of course,” the count said. “After saving his life at Zorndorf, he is sure to do so.”
Supper was now announced, and after it had been removed and the party d
rew round the fire, Fergus told them the story of his escape.
“It was excellently managed,” the count said, when he had finished. “I do not know that it was quite as dramatic as your escape from Spielberg, but I should think that, of the two, the escape from Linz must have seemed the most hopeless. The plan of getting the shutters open and of swimming the moat might have occurred to anyone; but the fact that you were in uniform, and that it would have been impossible to smuggle in a disguise, would have appeared to most men an insuperable obstacle to carrying out the plan.
“You certainly are wonderfully full of resource. As a rule, I should think that it is much more difficult for two men to make their escape from a place than it is for one alone; but it did not seem to be so, in this case.”
“It certainly did not add to the difficulty of getting out of the fort, count. Indeed, in one respect it rendered it more easy. There were three of us to work at the heads of the rivets, and it certainly facilitated our getting clothes from the boatmen, besides rendering the journey much more pleasant than it would have been for one of us alone.
“On the other hand, it would have been impossible to carry out the escape from Spielberg in the manner I did, if I had had two officers with me in the cell. We could not have hoped to obtain three uniforms, could hardly have expected all to slip by the sentry unnoticed. Lastly, the three of us could not have got post horses. Still, it is quite possible that we might have escaped in some other manner.”
“Then you have not the most remote idea where you will find your servant and horse?”
“Not the slightest. If Captain Lindsay got safely through the battle of Hochkirch, I should say that my man would stick by him. His servant, a tough Scotchman, and Karl are great chums; and I have no doubt that, unless he received positive orders to the contrary, Karl has kept company with him.”
“Of course you can find out, from the authorities here, who has taken command of Marshal Keith’s division; and might possibly hear whether he took over the marshal’s personal staff, or whether he brought his own officers with him.”
“Yes, I should think I might do that, count. I think I shall in any case report myself to the king; but if Lindsay were stationed at any place I could pass through, on my way to Breslau, I would pick up Karl and my horse.”
“I shall of course send you another horse tomorrow,” the count said. “No, no, it is of no use your saying anything against it. It was settled that I should supply you with mounts, while the war lasted, and I intend to carry that out fully. I don’t know that I have another in my stables here that is quite equal to the other pair, but there are two or three that approach them very nearly. If you can get a mounted orderly, well and good; if not, I will lend you one of my men. Any of my grooms would be delighted to go with you, for all regard you as the saviour of our lives.
“I am afraid, my friend, you will not be able to pay us many more visits. Your king is a miracle of steadfastness, of energy, and rapidity; but even he cannot perform impossibilities. Leave out the Russians, and I believe that he would be more than a match for the Austrians, who are hampered by the slowness of their generals; but Russia cannot be ignored. In the first campaign she was non-existent, in the second she annexed East Prussia. This year you have had a deadly tussle with her, next year she may be still more formidable; and I do not believe that Frederick with all his skill, and with the splendid valour his troops show, can keep the Russians from advancing still further into the country, and at the same time prevent the Austrians and the Federal army from snatching Dresden from his grasp.
“I myself should regret this deeply. Prussia, although she taxes the population heavily, at least permits no disorders nor ill treatment of the people, no plundering of the villages; while the Austrians, Croats, and Pandoors will spread like a swarm of hornets over the land, and the state of the Saxons under their so-called rescuers will be infinitely worse than it has been under their conquerors.”
“It would be a heavy blow to the king to lose Dresden,” Fergus agreed, “but I am by no means sure that he would not be better without it; except, of course, that it would bring the enemy so much nearer to Berlin, otherwise the loss of Saxony would be a benefit to him. During all his movements, and in all his combinations, he is forced to keep an eye on Dresden. At one moment it is Soubise, with his mixed army of French, Austrians, and Confederate troops, who have to be met and, leaving all else, Frederick is forced to march away two or three hundred miles, and waste two or three precious months before he can get a blow at them. Then he has to leave a considerable force to prevent them gathering again, while he hurries back to prevent Daun from besieging Dresden, or to wrest Silesia again out of his hands. Saxony lost, he could devote his whole mind and his whole power to the Russian and Austrian armies; who will no doubt, at the next campaign, endeavour to act together; and the nearer they are to each other, the more easily and rapidly can he strike blows at them alternately.”
“Perhaps you are right,” the count said, “and certainly the Austrians would have to keep a considerable force to garrison Dresden and hold Saxony; for they would be sure that, at the very first opportunity, Frederick would be among them raining his blows rapidly and heavily. As to any advance north, they would not dare attempt it; for Frederick, who can move more than twice as fast as any Austrian army, would fall on their flank or rear and annihilate them.
“Still, the blow would be undoubtedly a heavy one for the king, inasmuch as it would greatly raise the spirits of his enemies, and would seem to show them that the end was approaching.”
“I think the end is a good way off still, count. Even if the Russians and Austrians marched across Prussia, they would hold little more than the ground they stood on. Frederick would be ever hovering round them, attacking them on every opportunity, and preventing them from sending off detached columns; while the cavalry of Ziethen and Seidlitz would effectually prevent Cossacks and Croats from going out to gather stores for the armies, and to plunder and massacre on their own account. I doubt whether anything short of the annihilation of his army would break the king’s spirit and, so far as I can see, that is by no means likely to take place.”
“However, the point at present, my friend, is that if the Austrians get Dresden, it may be long before we see you again.”
“I fancy that when the army goes into winter quarters again, if I am able to get leave of absence, I shall do myself the pleasure of paying you a visit, whether the city has changed hands or not. If one can travel twice through Austria without being detected, it is hard indeed if I cannot make my way into Saxony.”
“But you must not run too great risks,” the countess said. “You know how glad we should be to see you, and that we regard you as one of ourselves; but even a mother could hardly wish a son to run into such danger, in order that they might see each other for a short time.”
“What do you say, Thirza?” her father asked.
The girl, thus suddenly addressed, coloured hotly.
“I should be glad to see him, father—he knows that very well—but I should not like him to run risks.”
“But he is always running risks, child; and that, so far as I can see, without so good a reason. At any rate, I shall not join your mother in protesting. What he says is very true. He has twice made his way many hundreds of miles in disguise, for the purpose of getting here in time for the first fighting; and I do not think that there will be anything like the same risk in his coming here to pay us a visit.
“At the same time, I would not say a single word to induce him to do so. There is no saying where he may be when the next winter sets in, or what may take place during the coming campaign. In times like these it is folly to make plans of any sort, three months in advance. I only say therefore that, should everything else be favourable, I think that an Austrian occupation of Saxony would not be a very serious obstacle to his paying us a visit, next winter.
“Once here, he would be absolutely safe, and as the household know what he has d
one for us—and probably for them, for there is no saying whether some, at least, of them might not have been killed by those villains—their absolute discretion and silence can be relied upon.
“However, it may be that we shall see him long before that. The king may have occasion to be here many times, during the summer.”
The count would not hear of Fergus returning to the hotel where he had put up, and for a week he remained at the chateau, where the time passed very pleasantly. The luxurious appointments, the hospitable attentions of his host and hostesses, and the whole of his surroundings formed a strong contrast, indeed, both to his life when campaigning, and the five months he had spent in the casemate at Linz.
At the end of that time he felt he ought to be on the move again. He had learnt that the officers of the marshal’s staff had been dispersed, some being attached to other divisions; and that Lindsay was now upon the staff of Prince Henry. The prince was out Erfurt way, and had already had some sharp fighting with the French and the Confederate army. Fergus had learned this on the day after his arrival at the chateau, and also that to the east there was no sign of any movement on the part of Daun or of the king. He therefore suffered himself to be persuaded to stay on for the week.
“Nobody is expecting you, Drummond,” the count said. “No doubt they will be glad to see you, but they will be just as glad ten days later as ten days earlier. You are believed to be safe in some Austrian prison, and you may be sure that no one will make any inquiries whether you spent a week, or a month, in recovering from your fatigues before taking up your duties again. At any rate, you must stay for at least a week.”