As soon as Keith and the waggon train arrived, bringing up the Prussian strength to 56,000, the king started, on the 15th August (1757), for Bernstadt; and then, to the stupefaction of the Austrians--who had believed that they had either Saxony or Silesia at their mercy, whenever they could make up their mind which ought first to be gobbled up--so rapidly did the Prussian cavalry push forward that Generals Beck and Nadasti were both so taken by surprise that they had to ride for their lives, leaving baggage coaches, horses, and all their belongings behind them.
On the 16th, Frederick with the army marched and offered battle to the Austrians; but although so superior in numbers, they refused to be beguiled from their fortified hill. At last, after tempting them in vain, Frederick was forced to abandon the attempt and return to Saxony, bitterly disappointed. He had wanted, above all things, to finish with the Austrians; so as to be able to move off to the other points threatened.
He now arranged that Bevern and Winterfeld should take the command in his absence, watch the Austrians, and guard Silesia; while he, with 23,000 men, marched on the 31st of August from Dresden, with the intention of attacking the combined French and German Confederacy force, under Soubise, that had already reached Erfurt. Keith accompanied the king on his harassing march.
Since the arrival of the army at Leitmeritz, Fergus had been incessantly engaged in carrying despatches between that town and Dresden; and worked even harder while the king was trying, but in vain, to bring about an engagement with the Austrians. For the first few days after starting for Erfurt, he had a comparatively quiet time of it. The marshal was now constantly the king's companion, his cheerful and buoyant temper being invaluable to Frederick, in this time of terrible anxiety. Fergus would have found it dull work, had it not been for the companionship of Lindsay, who was always light hearted, and ready to make the best of everything.
"I would rather be an aide-de-camp than a general, at present, Drummond," he said one day. "Thank goodness, we get our orders and have to carry them out, and leave all the thinking to be done by others! Never was there such a mess as this. Here we are in October, and we are very much as we were when we began in March."
"Yes, except that all our enemies are drawing closer to us."
"They are closer, certainly, but none of them would seem to know what he wants to do; and as for fighting, it is of all things that which they most avoid. We have been trying, for the last two months, for a fight with the Austrians, and cannot get one. Now we are off to Erfurt, and I will wager a month's pay that the French will retire, as soon as we approach; and we shall have all this long tramp for nothing, and will have to hurry back again, as fast as we came."
"It is unfortunate that we had to come, Lindsay. Things always seem to go badly, when the king himself is not present. The princes make blunder after blunder, and I have no faith in Bevern."
"No," Lindsay agreed, "but he has Winterfeld with him."
"Yes, he is a splendid fellow," Drummond said; "but everyone knows that he and Bevern do not get on well together, and that the duke would very much rather that Winterfeld was not with him; and with two men like that, the one slow and cautious, the other quick and daring, there are sure to be disagreements. We are going to attack a force more than twice our own strength, but I am much more certain as to what will be the result, than I am that we shall find matters unchanged when we get back here."