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Victory!" I answered not a word, but made as if slightly wounded and continued slowly on my way, though in fear and trembling indeed. As soon as I had thus distanced myself so far that no-one could see me any longer, I increased my pace twice, thrice, four, five, six times, glanced to left and right like a hunter, beheld once more from afar - and for the last time in my life - the killing and the slaughter, then rushed at full gallop past a copse all piled full of dead Hussars, Pandurs and horses, and ran without stopping down beside the river, and came to a ravine full of trees. At the same moment some Imperial soldiers suddenly appeared on its further side, having likewise withdrawn furtively from the battle, and when they saw me running down towards them, they levelled their guns at me three times, although I held my weapon low and made the customary sign to them with my hat. But they did not fire; and so I resolved to run straight up to them. Had I done otherwise (so I afterwards learnt) they would certainly have fired upon me. You dogs, thought I, had you shown this courage at Lobositz! And so when I came up to them, and declared myself a deserter, they took my weapon from me, promising that I should later have it returned. But he who had impounded it soon disappeared and took the gun with him. No matter!

Thereupon they took me to the nearest village, Scheniseck, which was maybe a good hour's walk below Lobositz. Here there was a ferry over the water, but only one rowing-boat for transport. There was a terrible shrieking of men, women and children, for each one wanted to be the first afloat, for fear of the Prussians, and all believed that they were hard on their heels. Nor was I among the last to jump in, amid a crowd of women. If the ferryman had not thrown a few out again, we should all have been drowned. On the other side of the river stood a guard-house of the Pandurs. My escorts led me thither, and the red-moustached ones greeted me with great politeness; though I understood not a word they spoke, nor they a word of mine, they gave me some tobacco and brandy and an escort to Leutmeritz (I think it was), where I spent the night all alone among the natives of Bohemia, and indeed I was not sure my head was safe when I laid it down to rest, but - and this was the best of it - my head was still in such confusion from the tumult of the day's events, that this important question did not trouble me in the least.

The next morning, the 2nd of October, I went down with a supply transport to the main Imperial camp at Budin. Here I met with about two hundred other Prussian deserters, each of them having, so to speak, taken his own way and his own time to reach safety, and among them was our Bachmann. How we jumped for joy to see each other again so unexpectedly, and in freedom! We began to tell each other our tales and to rejoice as if we were already at home and sitting in the chimney-corner. Yet amid this we said more than once: "Alas, if only Schärer from Wil was with us too! What can have become of him?"

We had permission to visit all parts of the camp, and both officers and men gathered round us in droves, expecting us to tell them more than we knew ourselves. Some among us knew how to make a fine speech, flattering our temporary hosts by throwing out a hundred lies to the detriment of the Prussians. And among the Emperor's men there were many great braggarts, the least little runt prided himself on having put to flight who knows how many men of Brandenburg - while he himself was fleeing! Then we were taken to see some prisoners of the Prussian cavalry, about fifty of them, what a pitiful spectacle! Hardly a man had come out of it without wounds and bruises; some had their faces all cut to pieces, others had been struck about the neck, the ears, the shoulders or the thighs. What a groaning and lamentation was heard on all sides! How lucky the poor fellows thought us for escaping a like fate, and how we ourselves gave thanks to God for it!

We were kept overnight in the camp, and each man was given a ducat as journey-money. Then they sent us with a cavalry-transport (there were about two hundred of us) to a Bohemian village, and from there, after a short sleep, we set off the next day for Prague. There we split up and received passports, one to each party of six, ten or twelve men who were going the same way together, for we were a wonderfully strange mingling of Swiss, Swabians, Saxons, Bavarians,

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