THE CAPTURE OF BURG.
I did my duty well, but mechanically; for my mind was always
wandering, and occupied by vague surmises, foreign from what passed
around me.
Amid severe storms of frost and snow we came to anchor off Rodbye,
and were joined by Kildon's company; thus the whole regiment now was
under the command of Ian. With us were one battalion of the Lord
Spynie's regiment of Scottish Lowlanders; the Baron Klosterfiörd's
new troop of pistoliers (for Karl had escaped from the Imperialists);
the Comte de Montgomerie's regiment of French Protestants, and a few
slender companies of Danish pikes and musketeers, making barely in
all three thousand men. With these the brave King Christian,
regardless that he was but as a mouse attacking a lion, resolved to
beat up the quarters of the invader at Fehmarn and elsewhere; and if
he could not conquer, at least to harass and slay as many of the
Imperialists as possible.
Storms of snow detained us a week; at last there was a fine day, when
the air was clear, and the hoar-frost hung on the boughs of the
leafless trees, and when the black ravens were seen floating above
the snow in the sunbeams. This clear weather accompanied us into
Fehmer-sund, a channel of deep water, about one mile broad, which
separates the isle of Fehmarn from the coast of Holstein.
Looking upon this little place--the jointure of his
wife-of-the-left-hand--as a key to the German empire, Christian had
resolved on driving out the Imperialists; and at noon came to anchor
off Burg, its capital, where we prepared to disembark under a fire of
cannon and musketry from a regiment of Walloon infantry, who
garrisoned the place.
Though early, in April, the day was bitterly cold; for the season was
one of intense severity. The sky and the narrow Sound were both of
the purest blue; but the whole island and the opposite coast lay
buried under a thick mantle of snow. Here and there along the shore,
we could perceive the deep tracks cut to denote the highways leading
into the interior; the whole atmosphere glittered, and the breath of
the soldiers froze on the cheek-plates of their helmets, or ascended
in steamy vapour from the boats, which, with thirty musketeers of our
regiment in each, made straight for the shore with drums beating and
pipes playing.
I gazed earnestly at the low and level beach of Fehmarn, in the dim
hope that Ernestine might have been conveyed there. My whole
thoughts were of her, and I am sure Gabrielle was almost forgotten.
Love, like grief, makes one very selfish at times. My recollections
of that day are dreamy and indistinct. I was desperate, careless of
life, and in that frame of mind which would have enabled me to
confront a battalion of pikes as readily as I would have encountered
a single man. I cared not a fig for what happened, and at the
command of Ian Dhu, now our lieutenant-colonel, I gladly sprang into
the first boat which, from the _Anna Catharina_, shot off for the
shore.
Two men of my company (a M'Farquhar and a Mackay) fell overboard; but
the cannon-balls from a flying battery on the shore, were ploughing
the water about us, and we had not time to pick up the poor fellows.
They called loudly for that succour which, in the hurry of that
desperate moment, we were totally unable to yield; and, loaded by
their iron trappings, accoutrements, and knapsacks, they sank like
stones. What are the lives of two men, when those of thousands,
perhaps, are hovering on the brink of eternity?
We landed under cover of a fire from our ships, which battered down
the snow-clad houses of Burg to dislodge the Walloons. My company of
M'Farquhars had the honour of first touching the ground. The kilted
clansmen leaped into the half-frozen water--formed in line, and blew
their matches as they advanced. Amid a storm of shot and forest of
pikes, we fell on the Walloons with clubbed muskets, and after
receiving and returning one volley drove them back.
"Who commands here in Fehmarn?" I asked of one poor fellow, a Walloon
ensign, who had been shot through the side, and lay writhing on the
ground.
He made no reply, but spat blood at me in his agony and animosity.
"Speak!" said I, holding my sword at his throat; "is it the Count of
Carlstein?"
"No--it is Colonel Walter Butler."
"Then Ernestine is not here," thought I, hurrying after my men, who,
on being reinforced by Spynie's Scots and Montgomerie's French, soon
drove the Walloons pell-mell into the town, compelling them to leave
their cannon behind. They had securely barricaded and loopholed
Burg; and, as we knew their commander to be an Irishman, we prepared
to encounter a resolute, and for us perhaps a disastrous defence.
Landing his entire force, the king invested the place on all sides;
and, perceiving that our ships cut off all succour by sea, Colonel
Butler sent a drummer to crave a parley, which ended in his entire
force marching out with the honours of war, their drums beating and
colours flying, amid the yells and execrations of the boors, on whom
they had committed innumerable ravages and outrages. From the beach,
our boats in a few hours conveyed the whole safely over to the coast
of Holstein.
Thus, with a slight loss, King Christian regained the whole island,
and after collecting tribute from its capital, and the villages of
Petersdorf and Puttgarten, and after tarrying there a few days to
refresh, we prepared to reimbark, encouraged by the good success of
our new campaign to make another essay upon the mainland of Holstein.
The house of the burgomaster was converted into a temporary hospital,
and among the wounded who had been conveyed there, I recognised my
former acquaintance, the Walloon ensign, and gave him a flask of corn
brandy, apologising at the same time for the fright I had given him.
He was now in better humour, and, being somewhat disposed for
conversation, I asked him if he knew "the Count Tilly's confidant and
scoutmaster, Bandolo, the Spanish bravo?"
"I have seen him a thousand times," he replied; "but you know not,
cavalier, how we soldiers despise this cowardly truckler, who
handles, but only in secret, the knife and the pistol. The day
before you attacked us, he sailed into the Fehmer-sund with tidings
of your coming, for which he received a hundred good dollars from
Colonel Butler; hence our barricades at Burg, and our batteries on
the beach."
"His vessel?" said I, turning breathlessly towards the Sound.
"A small dogger, with two sails, had on board only himself and three
other men, I believe; but the fellow is bold as Ogier le Dane, or the
devil himself."
"Were there any ladies with him!"
"Ladies with Bandolo!" repeated the Walloon, laughing, and then
making a grimace as his wound twitched him; "why, cavalier, though
the fellow is rich as Crœsus, the most degraded camp-follower
would shudder at his touch. Rumour says that he is steeped to the
lips in blood--the blood of assassinated men."
"And where is he now?" I asked, making a terrible effort to appear
calm.
"I know not. As your ships entered the Sound on the east, he sailed
out by the west, and is gone, I believe, towards Eckernfiörd, where a
body of Tilly's troops are cantoned."
"Heaven be thanked!" thought I, leaving the poor officer on his bed
of blood-stained straw; "it is on Eckernfiörd that we are next to
bend our cannon."
As Fehmarn is a fertile island, we procured an ample store of the
butter, cheese, and fresh provisions which the frugal inhabitants had
been able to conceal from the Imperial marauders; and in lieu of
their hose--now somewhat tattered--our Highlanders obtained some
hundred pairs of soft stockings, which had been knitted by the wives
and daughters of the boors.
We then re-embarked about the middle of April, minus our preacher or
chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Zerubabbel Bang, who had the misfortune to
fall in a duel. He and a lieutenant of Karl's pistoliers, having
quarrelled about the burgomaster's daughter, a pretty little
_jungfrau_ with blue eyes and blooming complexion, came to high
words, and from thence to hard blows with backsword and dagger, and
our poor minister (an old fellow student of mine at the King's
College in the Brave City) was fairly run through the body and slain.
Being a commissioned officer, and having the rank of major, we buried
him under the dismantled batteries with military honours. The right
wing of the regiment fired three volleys above the grave, and our
drums beat the _Point of War_, while the shovels of the pioneers
closed his last abode for ever.