“I should say, sir, that if I were to steal out to where they have been fighting for the last six hours, I might get a couple of uniforms to put over our own.  They will be lying thick enough there, poor chaps.  If we had them on, we might pass through any troops we might meet, as we both speak English.”

“That is a good idea, Mike, if you can carry it out.”

“Sure I can do that, and without difficulty, your honour.  I expect the enemy have drawn back a little, so as to be in some sort of order if we were to fall upon them in the night; and I know that all our men have been recalled.  I will fasten the horses to this tree, and perhaps your honour will keep an eye on them.”

“I will stay with them, Mike.”

The soldier at once made off.  The village was now crowded with troops.  All order was at an end, and the regiments were considerably mixed up.  The officers went among them, saying that an attempt was going to be made to pass through the enemy, and join the force on the plateau.  They pointed out that there was at least as much hope in being able to do so as in making off singly.

Many of the soldiers, not having themselves suffered defeat, responded to the call; and several bodies, four or five hundred strong, marched out into the darkness.  The majority, however, decided to shift for themselves, and stole away in threes and fours.  Of those that remained, some broke into the village wine and beer shops and drank to stupefaction; while others, exhausted by the efforts of the day, threw themselves down and slept.

Mike was away half an hour.

“I have got an officer’s cloak for you, and a helmet with feathers.  I think he must have been a staff officer, who was killed while delivering his orders.  I have got a soldier’s overcoat and shako for myself.”

“Capital, Mike!  Now I think that we can venture, and we will go the shortest way.  We might very well lose ourselves among these hills, if we were to try to make a circuit.”

Having put the Dutch uniforms over their own, they set out, taking the way to the left until they came to the main road by which the British reserve had advanced.  Then they mounted their horses.

“It is no use trying to make our way through the broken ground, Mike.  There is another road that goes through Huerne.  We will strike that, and must so get round on the right of the enemy.  Even if we come upon them, we are not likely to excite suspicion, as we shall be on a road leading from Oudenarde.

“I was noticing that road from the height.  It runs into this again, near Mullen, and the enemy are not likely to have posted themselves so near to the river.”

They rode on through Huerne.  The village was full of wounded.  No one paid them any attention, and they again went on, until suddenly they were challenged with the usual “Who comes there?”

“A staff officer, with despatches,” Desmond replied.