Urgent dispatches

As he watched Ilse riding away behind the ridge, Friedrich wondered what role she was playing, so he opened the dispatches to see the contents. He found a complete copy of the parade state of the French army and details of their planned thrust to Welle. Thrusting the despatches back in the bag he called out “Otto, who’s our best available rider?”

Von Zendabrau responded “Hugo von Schwillensaufenstein”

“Right give him these despatches and instruct him to ride with all haste to General Wurst in Pappenheim”

For the rest of the day all seemed quiet and as the sun began to set the FreiHusaren rode back to their camp in Welle, leaving a piquet under Sergeant Specht to watch the road overnight and give warning of any French activity. It was important to still have sufficient light as all the timbers on the bridges across the dikes had been loosened ready for removal and the horses had to be led across.

Arriving back, Friedrich dismissed his men and went to report to the Colonel at the Rode Leeuw tavern. He quickly explained what had happened, to the Colonels obvious annoyance “But I need to know what has been seen and I’ll have to wait till General Wurst copies the details of her despatches.”

“Begging your pardon Colonel, but following staff procedures I skimmed the despatches first before sending them to General Wurst”

“Excellent, thank you Friedrich, but I’m still concerned about my daughter’s safety, her anonymity was how she could move around easily, now she has been recognised I’m worried”

“Now quickly tell me what you remember as we are invited to dinner with the Bishop this evening and we are already late.”