But I own that I pictured, to myself, that the officers of these wonderful soldiers were fierce-looking men, regular iron veterans." "I am but eighteen," Charlie said, "and I myself feel it absurd that I should be a captain.

It is but two years since I was appointed an ensign, and the king happening to be with my company, when we had a sharp fight with the Russians, he rewarded us by having us made into a regiment; so each of us got promotion.

I was appointed captain last May, as a reward for a suggestion that turned out useful." "May I ask what it was, Captain Carstairs, for it seems to me that you are full of happy ideas ?" "King Charles, as you may have heard, speaks freely to officers and soldiers as he moves about the camp.

I was standing on the edge of the river, looking across at the Saxons, on the day before we made the passage, when the king came up and spoke to me.

He said there was no hope of our passage being covered--as our advance against the Russians at Narva had been--by a snowstorm; and I said that, as the wind was at our backs, if we were to set fire to the great straw stacks the smoke would hide our movements from the Saxons.
The idea was a very simple one, and would no doubt have occurred to the king himself; however, he put it into execution with success, and was good enough, afterwards, to promote me to the rank of captain." "So it was owing to you that our army--or rather the Saxon army, for but few Poles were engaged in the battle--was defeated," the count said, smiling.