Wissembourg, which lay on the-west bank of the Rhine, almost opposite Baden, had been used by Pichegru as his headquarters throughout the summer; so, although he had recently moved north, the town was still cluttered up with a large part of his baggage train and many officers of the administrative services. Seeing this as his coach entered the narrow streets, Roger decided to try to pick up as much information as he could about the progress of the new offensive before planning his attempt to cross the river that night.
It was as well that he did so, for events had been moving fast during the past few days. Thanks to his impeccable French, some officers at an hotel at which he pulled up readily accepted his invitation to join him in a glass of wine, and proved eager to acquaint him with the latest news. Gaily they described how the capture of Mannheim had thrown the whole of south-west Germany into a panic, and how both the Landgrave of Darmstadt and the Margrave of Baden were reported to have fled from their capitals.
If the last report were true, and Roger had to regard it as at least probable, it meant that the Prince de Cond6 would also have hurriedly evacuated Baden; so to attempt a clandestine crossing of the river there would now be to run a pointless risk. In these altered circumstances, with the Prince's whereabouts no longer known to him, Roger felt that his best plan would be to take the road north into the area where both banks of the Rhine were held by the French; as, with luck, he might then be able to cross it openly in his coach, the retention of which would prove invaluable to him while searching for the Prince's new headquarters.
Accordingly, he bade the officers a cheerful farewell, and collecting his two Belgian coachmen from the tap-room took them outside.
They were employees of the owner of the coach and responsible to him for its safe return, but had contracted only to take Roger to the left bank of the Rhine, opposite Baden. He now put it to them that he wished to keep the coach on for two or three days, and that if they would continue with him, obeying his orders without question, and keeping their mouths shut whatever they might see or hear, he would reward them by giving them a letter which would enable them to claim the considerable deposit he had paid on the coach when they got back with it to Brussels.
At first the men showed some hesitation, but on Roger's producing a purse full of gold coins and giving them ten thalers apiece as a bonus in hand, they agreed. So as dusk was falling the coach took the road that ran parallel with the river towards Mannheim.
A three-hour drive brought it opposite to the city. There Roger learned that during the assault the stone bridge had been too severely damaged by cannon fire to be safe for vehicles; but the French Engineers had since succeeded in throwing a pontoon bridge across for military traffic. Again he told his story, that he had urgent business with General Pichegru, and once more, their suspicions lulled by this bold assertion, a guard who had halted the coach allowed it to proceed.
Roger had been told by the guard that the General had installed himself in the Rathaus but, after crossing the bridge, instead of following the directions the guard had given him to find it, Roger told his coachmen to take the first turning they came to on the right, and to keep on going until they were clear of the city.
All went well until they reached its outskirts. There a man in the middle of the road swinging a lantern called on them to halt, and from a barrier a few yards behind him a sergeant approached the coach.
Before the N.C.O. had a chance to open his mouth, Roger thrust his head out of the window of the coach, and shouted: "I am a surgeon! General Pichegru's nephew has been wounded out in front there, and the General has despatched me to do my best for him. Open the barrier! Lose not a moment; the young man's life may depend upon it."
The ruse got them through, and the coach had hardly halted before it was on the move again.
Having reason to believe that the battle was still fluid, in which case no continuous line would yet have been formed in front of Mannheim, Roger now hoped that under cover of darkness he might make his way between the various French units, most of whom at this hour would be sleeping in their bivouacs, without further challenge; but in that he was disappointed.
Some three miles from the city they were again called on to halt, and this time the N.C.O. in charge of the patrol did not swallow Roger's story so readily. He said that he knew of no units farther advanced than his own, and demanded to see the traveller's papers.
Having committed himself, Roger's only possible course was to maintain his bluff and intensify it Sharply he told the man that when a valued life hung in the balance one did not wait for special papers before setting out to save it, and that if he could not tell a good Frenchman from a foreigner he did not deserve to serve under so great a soldier as General Pichegru; then he let forth a spate of filth and obscenity couched in the argot of the Paris gutters that he had picked up during the months when he had himself lived as one of the sansculottes.
Reeling under the impact, and with all his suspicions dissipated, the N.C.O. waved the coach on. Yet he did so shaking his head and muttering uneasily: "Have your own way then, Citizen; but I know of no units forward of us, and if you go on for more than a mile or two you'll like as not find yourself in the hands of the enemy."
That was precisely what Roger hoped, and his hopes were fulfilled. Next time a call came for the coach to halt it was in a strange tongue, and a moment later it was surrounded by a vedette of Moravian Hussars. Finding it impossible to make himself fully understood, Roger fished out from under the thick turn-up of his cuff, the envelope containing his British passport, waved it beneath the sergeant's nose and pointed vigorously towards the rear of the Austrian position.
The coach was then sent on under escort for a mile or more to a farmhouse, from which there emerged a haggard-looking officer who spoke a little German. Using such stilted phrases of that tongue as he could put together Roger asked to be taken to the nearest headquarters, and with its escort the coach moved on through the darkness.
An hour later it drew up in front of a country house, in one of the ground floor rooms of which a light was burning. Roger was led inside and found the night-duty officer there to be a young exquisite dressed in a uniform of blue and silver with a sable-trimmed half cloak, and whiskers in the new fashion, very similar to his own.
To him Roger presented his passport, which carried the name of MacElfic, and told him that he was en mission from his Prime Minister to the Prince de Cond6. The young man immediately became all politeness and offered to put him up for the night; but on Roger's replying that his mission was urgent, the Austrian promised to provide him with a guide, a change of horses and a new escort; and, in the meantime, sent an orderly for food and wine.
Three-quarters of an hour later, pleasantly fortified, Roger was on his way again; but the guide did not know the exact whereabouts of the Prince's new headquarters, only that they were somewhere in the neighbourhood of Heilbronn; so on reaching that area numerous enquiries had to be made, until they were at last located some five miles from the town in a castle to which a modern wing had been added.