Without delay an advance was ordered against Oppenheim.  It lay on the Imperialist side of the Rhine.  Behind the town stood a strong and well fortified castle upon a lofty eminence.  Its guns swept not only the country around it, but the ground upon the opposite side of the river.  There, facing it, stood a strong fort surrounded by double ditches, which were deep and broad and full of water.  They were crossed only by a drawbridge on the side facing the river, and the garrison could therefore obtain by boats supplies or reinforcements as needed from the town.

The Green and Blue Brigades at once commenced opening trenches against this fort, and would have assaulted the place without delay had not a number of boats been brought over by a Protestant well wisher of the Swedes from the other side of the river.  The assault was therefore delayed in order that the attack might be delivered simultaneously against the positions on both sides of the river.  The brigade of guards and the White Brigade crossed in the boats at Gernsheim, five miles from the town, and marched against it during the night.

The Spaniards from their lofty position in the castle of Oppenheim saw the campfires of the Scots around their fort on the other side of the river, and opened a heavy cannonade upon them.  The fire was destructive, and many of the Scots were killed, Hepburn and Munro having a narrow escape, a cannonball passing just over their heads as they were sitting together by a fire.

The defenders of the fort determined to take advantage of the fire poured upon their assailants, and two hundred musketeers made a gallant sortie upon them; but Hepburn led on his pikemen who were nearest at hand, and, without firing a shot, drove them back again into the fort.  At daybreak the roar of cannon on the opposite side of the river commenced, and showed that the king with the divisions which had crossed had arrived at their posts.  The governor of the fort, seeing that if, as was certain, the lower town were captured by the Swedes, he should be cut off from all communication with the castle and completely isolated, surrendered to Sir John Hepburn.

The town had, indeed, at once opened its gates, and two hundred men of Sir James Ramsay’s regiment were placed there.  Hepburn prepared to cross the river with the Blue and Green Brigades to aid the king in reducing the castle —­ a place of vast size and strength —­ whose garrison composed of Spaniards and Italians were replying to the fire of Gustavus.  A boat was lying at the gate of the fort.

“Captain Graheme,” Hepburn said to Malcolm, “take with you two lieutenants and twenty men in the boat and cross the river; then send word by an officer to the king that the fort here has surrendered, and that I am about to cross, and let the men bring over that flotilla of boats which is lying under the town wall.”

Malcolm crossed at once.  After despatching the message to the king and sending the officer back with the boats he had for the moment nothing to do, and made his way into the town to inquire from the officers of Ramsay’s detachment how things were going.  He found the men drawn up.