Readjustments in the Russian Camp were manifold: but these are as nothing, in the tumultuous business of the day. Carting of their baggage, every article of value, to that safe Wagenburg in the River; driving of cattle,--the very driving of cattle through Frankfurt, endless herds of them, gathered by the Cossacks from far and wide, "lasted for four-and-twenty hours." Oxen in Frankfurt that day were at the rate of ten shillings per head. Often enough you were offered a full-grown young steer for a loaf of bread;nay the Cossacks, when there was absolutely no bidder, would slaughter down the animal, leave its carcass in the streets, and sell the hide for a TYMPF,--fivepence (very bad silver at present).
Never before or since was seen in Frankfurt such a Saturday, for bellowing and braying, and raging and tumulting, all through the day and through the night; ushering in such a Sunday too!
Sunday about 3 in the morning, Friedrich is on march again,--Russians still in their place; and Disposition FIRST, not SECOND at all, to be our rule of action! Friedrich, in Two Columns, marches off, eastward through the woods, as if for Reppen quite away from the Russians and their Muhlberg; but intending to circle round at the due point, and come down upon their right flank there (left flank, as he persists to call it), out of the woods, and clasp it in his arms in an impressive, unexpected way. In Two Columns;which are meant, as usual, to be the Two Lines of Battle: Seidlitz, with chosen Cavalry, is at the head of Column First, and will be Left Wing, were we on the ground; Eugen of Wurtemberg, closing the rear of Column First, will, he, or Finck and he together, be Right Wing. That is the order of march;--order of BATTLE, we shall find, had to alter itself somewhat, for reasons extremely valid!
Finck with his 12,000 is to keep his present ground; to have two good batteries got ready, each on its knoll ahead, which shall wait silent in the interim: Finck to ride out reconnoitring, with many General Officers, and to make motions and ostentations; in a word, to persuade the Russians that here is the Main Army coming on from the north. All which Finck does; avoiding, as his orders were, any firing, or serious commencement of business, till the King reappear out of the woods. The Russians give Finck and his General Officers a cannon salvo, here and there, without effect, and get no answer.
"The King does not see his way, then, after all?" think the Russians. Their Cossacks go scouring about; on the southern side, "burn Schwetig and Reipzig," without the least advantage to themselves: most of the Cavalry, and a regiment or two of excellent Austrian Grenadiers, are with Loudon, near the Red Grange, in front of the Russian extreme left;--but will have stept over into Big Hollow at a moment of crisis!
The King's march, through the Forest of Reppen, was nothing like so expeditious as had been expected. There are thickets, intricacies, runlets, boggy oozes; indifferent to one man well mounted, but vitally important to 30,000 with heavy cannon to bring on.
Boggy oozings especially,--there is one dirty stream or floss (HUNERFLIESS, Hen-Floss) which wanders dismally through those recesses, issuing from the far south, with dirty daughters dismally wandering into it, and others that cannot get into it (being of the lake kind): these, in their weary, circling, recircling course towards Oder,--FAULE LAACKE (Foul Lake, LITHER-MERE, as it were), Foul Bridge, Swine's Nook (SCHWEINEBUCKT), and many others,--occasion endless difficulty. Whether Major Linden was shot that day, or what became of him after, I do not know: but it was pity he had not studied the ground with a soldier's eye instead of a hunter's! Plumping suddenly, at last, upon Hen-Floss itself, Friedrich has to turn angularly; angularly, which occasions great delay: the heavy cannon (wall-guns brought from Custrin) have twelve horses each, and cannot turn among the trees, but have to be unyoked, reyoked, turned round by hand:--in short, it was eight in the morning before Friedrich arrived at the edge of the wood, on the Klosterberg, Walckberg, and other woody BERGS or knolls, within reach of Muhlberg, and behind the preliminary abatis there (abatis which was rather of service to him than otherwise);--and began privately building his batteries.
At eight o'clock he, with Column First, which is now becoming Line First (CENTRE of Line First, if we reckon Finck as RIGHT-WING), is there; busy in that manner: Column Second, which was to have been Rear Line, is still a pretty way behind; and has many difficulties before it gets into Kunersdorf neighborhood, or can (having wriggled itself into a kind of LEFT-WING) co-operate on the Russian Position from the south side. On the north side, Finck has been ready these five hours.--Friedrich speeds the building of his batteries: "Silent, too; the Russians have not yet noticed us!"By degrees the Russians do notice something; shoot out Cossacks to reconnoitre. Cossacks in quantity; who are so insolent, and venture so very near, our gunners on the north battery give them a blast of satisfactory grape-shot; one aud then another, four blasts in all, satisfactory to the gunner mind,--till the King's self, with a look, with a voice, came galloping: "Silence, will you!"The Russians took no offence; still considering Finck to be the main thing and Friedrich some scout party,--till at last, Half-past eleven, everything being ready on the Walck Hill, Friedrich's batteries opened there, in a sudden and volcanic way.