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Bevern and the Kalckstein) were to withdraw. We thought that we were returning to camp and that the danger was all over. So we hurried cheerfully up the steep vine-covered slopes, picked hatsful of the fine purple grapes and ate to our hearts' content, and I and those by me had no thought of fear, though from the height where we stood we could see our comrades still standing down there amid fire and smoke, though we heard a fearful roaring as of thunder, and though we could not discern which side was gaining the victory.

Meanwhile our officers drove us further up the hill, and on the summit a narrow pass led between crags and down again on the other side. As soon as our vanguard had reached this summit a terrible hail of musket-fire burst out, and now we could see where the trap was laid in our path. Several thousand Imperial Pandurs had been moved up the other side of the hill, expressly to attack our army in the rear, this plan must have been betrayed to our officers, and so we were to forestall them. Only a few minutes more, and they would have won the height from us, and we should probably have got the worst of it. Now an indescribable slaughter took place, before we could drive the Pandurs out from among the trees. Our advance troops suffered severely, but the rear ranks pressed after them at breakneck speed, until at last all had gained the height. There we had to go stumbling over heaps of dead and wounded. Then the Pandurs went helter-skelter down the hill, jumping down over one wall after another, down to the level ground. Our native Prussians and Brandenburgers sprang upon the Pandurs like Furies. I too was quite beside myself with heat and excitement, and conscious of no fear or repugnance I loosed off nearly all my sixty cartridges without stopping, until my flintlock became almost red-hot and I had to carry it by the sling; yet I do not believe that I hurt any living thing, it all went into thin air. On the level ground by the water in front of the village of Lobositz the Pandurs formed up again, and fired up the vineyard slopes to such purpose that many another before me and beside me bit the turf. Prussians and Pandurs were lying mingled everywhere together, and where one of the latter still stirred he was hit on the head with a butt or run through the body with a bayonet.

Now on the plain the battle was begun anew. But who could fittingly describe such a scene: the smoke and steam now issuing forth from Lobositz, the crackling and thundering as if heaven and earth were about to dissolve, while the senses were confused by the unceasing roll of hundreds of drums, by the sound of all kinds of military music that stirred the heart and lifted the spirits, by the shouts of so many commanders and the bellowing of their adjutants, and by the howling and shrieking from so many thousand wretched, crushed, half-dead victims of the day! At this time - it might have been about three o'clock - when Lobositz was already in flames, many hundreds of Pandurs, upon whom our advance troops had again fallen like raging lions, sprang into the water; and as the attack now began upon Lobositz itself - at this time I was not, indeed, among the foremost, but among the rearguard a little way up among the vines, while many a man, as I said before, jumped down much more nimbly than myself over one wall after another, to hasten to the help of his comrades.

And as I stood there a little way up the hill, gazing down into the plain as if into a dark storm-cloud heavy with thunder and hail, at that moment I thought the time had come, or rather, my guardian angel warned me, to save myself by flight. I therefore looked about me on all sides: before me all was fire, smoke and vapour, behind me were many men still following on and hurrying in pursuit of the enemy, on my right hand two armies in full battle array. On my left hand I saw at last vineyards, bushes, copses, only a few men here and there, Prussians, Pandurs, Hussars, and of these more dead and wounded than living. There, there, that way, thought I, otherwise I'll never do it!

6. In which though I win but little honour in battle, yet I am fortunate in my escape:

And so, with a slow and steady pace to begin with, I stole a little way towards the left, through the vines. A few Prussians were still hurrying past me. "Come on, come on, brother!" they said

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