Still, even then they might
have concentrated between the trenches and the town. But no orders
had been given. The general was one of the first we captured. The
others waited for the orders that never came, until it was too
late. If the general who commanded on the left had massed his
troops, and marched against us as we were attacking the position
they held on their right, we should have been caught between two
fires."
"It was a badly managed business, altogether," Doctor Michaeloff
growled; "but we shall do better next time. We shall understand
Charles's tactics better. We reckoned on his troops, but we did not
reckon on him.
"Kelly tells me that you would not care to change service."
"My friends are in the Swedish army, and I am well satisfied with
the service. I daresay, if Russia had been nearer England than
Sweden is, and we had landed there first, we should have been as
glad to enter the service of the czar as we were to join that of
King Charles. Everyone says that the czar makes strangers welcome,
and that he is a liberal master to those who serve him well. As to
the quarrel between them, I am not old enough to be able to give my
opinion on it, though, as far as I am concerned, it seems to me
that it was not a fair thing for Russia to take advantage of
Sweden's being at war with Denmark and Augustus of Saxony, to fall
upon her without any cause of quarrel.
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