Page 147 - A Jacobite Exile

"Your majesty has great stacks of straw here, collected for forage for the
cattle. No doubt a good deal of it is damp, or if not, it could be easily

wetted. If we were to build great piles of it, all along on the banks here, and
set it alight so as to burn very slowly, but to give out a great deal of smoke,

this light wind would blow it across the river into the faces of the Saxons,
and completely cover our movements."

"You are right!" the king exclaimed. "Nothing could be better. We will
make a smoke that will blind and half smother them;" and he hurried away.

An hour later, orders were sent out to all the regiments that, as soon as it
became dusk, the men should assemble at the great forage stores for fatigue

duty. As soon as they did so, they were ordered to pull down the stacks, and
to carry the straw to the bank of the river, and there pile it in heavy masses,

twenty yards apart. The whole was to be damped, with the exception of
only a small quantity on the windward side of the heaps, which was to be
used for starting the fire.

In two hours, the work was completed. The men were then ordered to

return to their camps, have their suppers, and lie down at once. Then they
were to form up, half an hour before daybreak, in readiness to take their
places in the boats, and were then to lie down, in order, until the word was

given to move forward.

This was done, and just as the daylight appeared the heaps of straw were
lighted, and dense volumes of smoke rolled across the river, entirely
obscuring the opposite shore from view. The Saxons, enveloped in the

smoke, were unable to understand its meaning. Those on the watch had
seen no sign of troops on the bank, before the smoke began to roll across

the water, and the general was uncertain whether a great fire had broken out
in the forage stores of the Swedes, or whether the fire had been purposely
raised, either to cover the movements of the army and enable them to

march away and cross at some undefended point, or whether to cover their
passage.