With Frederick the Great Part 28

Neither party had any real thoughts of fighting. Fermor, beaten on his own ground the day before, could not dream of attacking the Prussians. The latter were worn out by the fatigues of the previous day. Moreover, on each side the musketry ammunition was used up.

The hussars, pursuing the Cossacks, had in the night come upon the Russian waggon train at Kleim, and carried off a good deal of portable plunder.

The next morning, under cover of a fog, the Russians retreated, reached their baggage, and then moved slowly away; and, hara.s.sed by Dohna, sullenly continued their retreat to the Russian frontier. If Frederick could have pressed them, he would probably have won another victory; but he had news which called him to hasten away west to join Prince Henry, as his presence there was urgently required for the defence of Saxony.

Fergus had been with the king, when the Dohna regiments gave way before the impetuous charge of the Russians; the rest of the staff having been sent away, one after the other, either to bring up Seidlitz or to order a fresh movement among the infantry; and as the king rode down to endeavour to restore order, he followed closely behind him. The confusion was terrible. The Russian horse, mixed up with the infantry, were sabring and trampling them down.

Suddenly three of them dashed at the king. Fergus, setting spurs to his horse, interposed between them and Frederick. One of the Russians was ridden over, horse and man, by the impetus of his rush. The other two attacked him furiously, and for a moment he was very hard pressed. He kept his horse prancing and curvetting, and managed to keep both his a.s.sailants on his right; until at last he cut one down and, half a minute later, ran the other through the body.

"Gallantly done, Major Drummond," the king said quietly as, wheeling his horse, Fergus returned back to take his post behind him. "I shall not forget that you have saved my life."

Then, without further comment, Frederick continued his work trying to rally the infantry; ordering, entreating, and even laying the cane he always carried across their shoulders.

A minute later there was a thunder of hoofs, and Seidlitz burst down upon the Russian ma.s.s, changing in a moment the fate of the battle. Excited by the late encounter, Fergus's horse took its bit between its teeth, joined Seidlitz's cavalry as they swept past and, in spite of the efforts of its rider, plunged with him into the midst of the fight. For the next few minutes Fergus had but slight knowledge of what was going on, he being engaged in a series of hand-to-hand fights with both cavalry and infantry. Three times he was wounded, and then the pressure ceased, and he was again galloping across the moors in pursuit of the Russian horse.

It was not until Seidlitz's force drew rein that he recovered the control of his horse. Its flank was bleeding from a bayonet gash, and a bullet had gone through its neck. The first wound was of comparatively small consequence, but he feared that the other was serious; but though the horse panted from its exertion and excitement, its breath came regularly; and it was evident that the ball had not hit the spine, for had it done so it would have fallen at once.

He turned and rode back with the cavalry, who dismounted a short distance from the scene of action, in readiness to take their part again, should they be required; while he pursued his way to the spot where the king had stationed himself, surrounded by several of his staff. The king glanced at him, and then said:

"You are relieved from duty, Major Drummond. Let one of the surgeons see to you, at once."

Fergus rode but a short distance and then, turning suddenly faint, he slid from his horse to the ground. One of the staff, happening to look round, at once rode back to him.

"You had best let me bandage up your wounds roughly," he said. "It will be difficult to find a surgeon, now that they are all up to their eyes in work, somewhere in the rear."

Fergus had received two severe wounds in the face, and a bayonet thrust through his leg. The officer did his best to stanch the bleeding, and was still occupied in doing so when Karl rode up, jumped from his horse, and ran to his master's side.

"Where have you been, Karl?" Fergus asked, for the soldier had also received a severe wound in the head.

"I followed you, master, as in duty bound; but I was some distance behind you, and in that melee I could not get near you; and being mixed up with one of the squadrons, I did not see you as you came back, and was in a great state about you until, on riding up to the staff, one of the officers pointed you out to me."

"I think that you are in good hands now," the officer said. "I will join the king again."

Fergus thanked him warmly, but in a weak voice.

"The first thing, master, is for you to get a drink," Karl said; and he took, from the holster of Fergus's saddle, a flask that he had placed there that morning. "Take a good drink of this," he said, "then I will see to your wounds. It is plain enough to see that that officer knew nothing about them."

Fergus drank half of the contents of the flask, and then handed it to Karl.

"You finish it up," he said. "You want it as much as I do."

"Not so much, master; but I want it badly enough, I own."

Having drank, he proceeded to rebandage his master's wounds, first laying on them rolls of lint he took from his own saddlebag.

"I never go on a campaign without lint and a bandage or two," he said. "Many a life has been lost that might easily enough have been saved, had they been at hand."

He laid the lint on the wounds, and then bound them firmly and evenly. He had a bandage left, when he had finished this. With the aid of a man who was limping to the rear, he used it for stanching his own wounds.

"Well, master," he said, "you cannot do better than lie here, for the present. I will look after the horses, and fasten them up to that bush. The battle is going on as fiercely as ever, and looks as if it would go on until dark. If so, there will be no collecting the wounded tonight; but as soon as I see where the king bivouacs, I will get you there somehow."

"I shall do very well here--at any rate, for the present, Karl. In the meantime, it would be a good thing if you would take the two horses down to the brook, and give them a good drink. You mayn't get a chance later on. As my horse Turk is wounded in two places, I have no doubt the poor beast is as thirsty as I am."

"The bayonet wound is of no consequence," Karl said, after examining the horse's flanks; "except that it has taken a good bit off its value. I don't think this bullet wound through the neck is serious, either."

In an hour Karl returned, leading the horses.

"I feel all the better for a wash, captain. I wish you could have one, too. I have filled my water bottle, but you will want that before morning."

By means of the valises and cloaks, Fergus was propped up into a half-sitting position; and he remained where he was until, after nightfall, the din of battle ceased. He had eaten a few mouthfuls of bread, and felt stronger; and by the time the tents were pitched, and the bivouac fires lighted, he was able to stand. With Karl's a.s.sistance he mounted in side-saddle fashion and, Karl leading the horses, made for the tents of the king's staff, five hundred yards away. Captain Diedrich, the officer who shared the tent with Fergus, helped Karl to lift him down and carry him in.

"Do you want a surgeon to see you?"

"No, they must have thousands of serious cases on hand. I merely fainted from loss of blood. The two wounds in my head cannot be very serious, and Karl has bandaged them up as well as a surgeon could do. The worst wound is in my leg. The bayonet went right through it, and for a moment pinned it to the saddle. However, it is but a flesh wound, behind the bone about six inches below the knee. It bled very freely at first, but Karl stanched it, and it has not burst out since; so it is evident that no great harm is done."

"I will bring you in some wine and water now," Diedrich said. "They are getting supper, and I will send you a bowl of soup, as soon as it is ready."

After Karl had tethered the horses--that of Fergus with the others belonging to the staff, and his own with those of the escort and staff orderlies--he sat down at one of the fires, ate his supper--for each man carried three days' provisions in his haversack--and, chatting with his comrades, heard that several of the orderlies had been killed in the fight; and that four of the officers of the royal staff had also fallen under the enemy's fire, as they carried messages through the storm of case shot and bullets. All agreed that never had they seen so terrible a fight, and that well-nigh a third, if not more, of the army had been killed or wounded.

"We made a mistake about these Russians," one of the troopers said.

"They are dirty, and they don't even look like soldiers, but I never saw such obstinate beggars to fight. From the moment the cavalry made their first charge they were beaten, and ought to have given in; but they seemed to know nothing about it, and that second line of theirs charged as if it was but the beginning of a battle.

I was never so surprised in my life as when they poured down on us, horse and foot; but all that was nothing to the way they stood, afterwards. If they had been bags of sawdust they could not have been more indifferent to our fire.

"That was a bad business of Dohna's men. I thought, when we joined them, they looked too spick and span to be any good; but that they should run, almost as fast and far as the men of the Federal army at Rossbach, is shameful. Neither in the last war nor in this has a Prussian soldier so disgraced himself.

"I don't envy them. I don't suppose a man in the army will speak to them, and we may be sure that it will be a long time, indeed, before our Fritz gets over it. It will need some hard fighting, and something desperate in the way of bravery, before he forgives them.

"How is your master, Karl?"

"He will do. He has got three wounds, and lost a lot of blood; but in a fortnight he will be in the saddle again. Perhaps less, for he is as hard as steel."

"He saved the king's life, Karl. I was twenty yards away, and was wedged in so that there was no moving, except backwards; for Dohna's men were half mad with fright, and the Russians were cutting and slashing in the middle of us."

"I saw it," Karl said. "I was close to you at the time. I put spurs to my horse and rode over three or four of our own men, and cut down one who grasped my reins; but I got there too late. I had no great fear of the result, though. Why, you know, he killed six Pomeranians who were looting Count Eulenfurst's place, close to Dresden; and he made short work of those three Russians. It was done beautifully, too. They tried to get one on each side of him, but he kept them on his right, and that made a safe thing of it.

"He is a quiet, good-tempered officer. There is as much fun about him as a boy, but when his spirit is up, there are not many swordsmen in the army that could match him. Why, when he first joined, nearly three years ago, he was in the 3rd Royal Dragoons, my own regiment; and I heard the sergeant who was in the fencing room say that there was not an officer in the regiment who was a match for him with the sword.

"Now I have finished my pipe, and must be going to look after him again."

The king's surgeon examined Fergus's wounds the next morning, and said that, although he would not be able to sit a horse until his leg had healed, he would otherwise soon be convalescent.

Soon after he had left him, Sir John Mitch.e.l.l came in to see him.

As the English amba.s.sador had very often, during the last two winters, met Fergus in the king's apartments, at which he himself was a regular visitor, they were by this time well known to each other. Mitch.e.l.l, indeed, regarded Fergus as a valuable a.s.sistant in his work of interesting Frederick, and turning his mind from his many troubles and anxieties.

"The surgeon has just given a good account of you to the king, Drummond," he said; "and his majesty expressed much satisfaction at hearing that your wounds are not serious.

"'That youth is not like most of your compatriots, Mitch.e.l.l,' he said to me with a smile; 'ever ready to fight, but equally ready to join in a drinking bout, should opportunity offer. He is always on horseback, and as hardy and as healthy as can be. With one of the hard-drinking sort, fever might set in; but there is no risk of it with him.

"'As I told you, he saved my life yesterday. I was nearly compelled to take to my sword, but that would have been of little avail against the three Russians. Save for the sake of Prussia, my life is of no great value to me, for 'tis one full of care and trouble; but for my country's sake I would fain hold on to it, as long as there is hope for her deliverance from her enemies.