With Frederick the Great: A Story of the Seven Years' War

by G. A. Henty

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."