This time, however, his reliance was falsified. All Daun's generals were of opinion that it would be disgraceful, were they to stand on the defensive against an army practically less than a third of their force; and their expostulations at length roused Daun into activity. Once decided, his dispositions were, as usual, excellent.
His plan was an able one. He himself, with thirty thousand men, was to start as soon as it was dark on Friday evening, sweep round to the south, follow the base of the Devil's Mountain, and then through the hollows and thick wood till he was close to the force on the right of Hochkirch; and was to fall suddenly on them, at five o'clock on Saturday morning. The orders were that, as soon as Hochkirch was taken, the rest of the army, sixty thousand strong, were to march against Frederick, both in front and on his left, and so completely smash and crumple him up.
Frederick had no premonition of the storm that was gathering. On Thursday and Friday the Austrians were engaged, as usual, in felling trees, forming abattis, throwing up earthworks, and in all ways strengthening their position. Everything seemed to show that Daun was still bent upon standing upon the defensive only.
As the lurking Croats and Pandoors had, every night, crept up through the brushwood and hollows, and skirmished with the Prussian outposts away on the right, scattered firing was not heeded much in Hochkirch. Fergus had just got up, in the little room he shared with Lindsay in the marshal's quarters, a mile north of Hochkirch; and was putting on his boots when, a few minutes past five, the sound of firing was heard.
"There are the Croats, as usual," he said.
"What a restless fellow you are, Drummond! You have been up, at this unearthly hour, each morning since we got here. It won't be light for another two hours yet. I doubt whether it will be light then. It looks to me as if it were a thick fog."
"You are right about my early hours, and I admit I have been restless. It is not a pleasant idea that, but a mile away, there is an army big enough to eat us up; and nothing whatever to prevent their pouncing upon us, at any moment, except two or three batteries. The marshal was saying, last night, he should regard it as the most fortunate escape he ever had, if we drew off safely tonight without being attacked.
"That firing is heavier than usual. There go a couple of guns!"