"In our first engagement we had not much to do. The enemy fired at us from a distance, whilst we stood still and looked at them. Some of the recruits bobbed their heads aside when they saw the shot coming through the air. 'Don't shake your head, my man,' the lieutenant would say; 'you might chance to knock it against a cannon-ball.' In the second action we took a gun from the enemy. It came up very near us and unlimbered; but, before it had time to fire a shot, my lieutenant made the soldiers believe it was one of our own guns; that the enemy were about to capture it; and could we suffer this? We could not suffer it, and rushed on: a few shots met us; but before we well knew what we did, the gun was in our power. The whole was over in less time than I take to tell it.
"From that day forward nobody made fun of the Red Boots, and soon we were supplied with muskets. Many of these were hardly fit to fire with; but bayonet and butt were always there, wherewith to thrust and strike.
"It was in the dog-days. For three months we had received no pay. At last, to silence my lieutenant's terrible expostulations, they sent us money—fifteen notes of a hundred florins each.
"The salaries of Government officials were paid in fifteen-kreuzer pieces; the money we soldiers wanted, for our daily bread, was sent in hundred-florin notes. Of course, nothing could be easier, in the Wallach hamlets in which we were cantoned, than to get small change for fifteen hundred-florin notes.
"Whilst my lieutenant was grumbling over this, and puzzling his head how to divide these few large notes into many small ones, a courier arrived and brought him a letter.
"The lieutenant read the letter, and laughed out loud. Then he ordered a parade. He was the only officer present. Two captains and a major were constantly rambling about, and seldom saw their battalion, but left everything to my lieutenant. So he ordered the drums to beat for muster; and when the men were assembled, he informed them that their pay had come just in the nick of time. Then he produced the fifteen hundred florins[24] and a pair of scissors, made the soldiers file past, and cut off a slip of the notes for each one of them. It was the only way to divide them.
"This done, he came singing and whistling into his quarters, laughed and cut jokes, played a thousand pranks, and at last called to me, and asked if I had a dry cloth at hand, to wipe up something.
"I answered that I had.
"'Go and fetch it, then.' And he continued to laugh and jest, and seemed in most wonderful good humour. 'Make haste,' he shouted after me, as I hurried to fetch the cloth. I felt quite sure he was going to play me some famous trick, he looked so sly and comical when he gave me the order.