To have again used the Mess cart that had brought Roger to Hamburg would have meant travelling very slowly, so Colonel Grandmaison agreed that Roger might take the smallest of three coaches that the owner of the castle had left in the coach-house before taking to flight, and their departure was fixed for November 30th.
As the state of the country was so unsettled, it was decided that they should travel in civilian clothes; so, on the day before they left, they went into Hamburg where Roger bought a suit for Charles, another, better-fitting one than that in which he had left Leipzig for himself, and a suitable costume for Dopet who was to act as coachman. Then all three of them packed their uniforms in a valise.
On the 30th, with the good wishes of Colonel Grandmaison, the surgeon who had looked after Roger, and numerous other people, they set off. By this time Roger had only enough money left to see them back to France, and to bribe a smuggler to put them across the Channel would require a considerable sum, so he decided to make first for Paris, as there he could draw from the Paymaster at the Ministry of War as much as he required.
The most direct route to Paris lay by way of Bremen, Osnabruck, Munster, Dortmund, Cologne and Rheims, but such scant intelligence as they had implied that the Prussians had already reached the lower Rhine and the frontier of Holland. In consequence Roger decided that in order not to run the risks of crossing a battle area it would be wiser, instead of heading for Cologne, to make a considerable detour and head for the Frankfurt-Mainz area which had for years been so strongly held by the French that it would almost certainly still be in their hands. So, from Dortmund, they turned south-west and took by-roads through the Westerwald and Tannus on their way to Mainz.
Two afternoons after leaving Dortmund they were approaching Wiesbaden. On rounding a bend in the road, to Roger's surprise they suddenly came on an outpost of Prussian infantry. A Captain called on them to halt. The coach pulled up and Roger put his head out of the window. The officer asked where they had come from. Roger replied 'Dortmund'. There followed other questions, to all of which Roger glibly gave answers which he had already thought up in case of such a challenge. The Captain seemed satisfied, until he asked them to produce proofs of their identity. That they could not do. His face then took on a stern look and he said:
'I regret, Herrschaft, but there are many adherents of the arch-fiend Bonaparte still at large on this side of the Rhine, and some of them are spies. I must search your luggage.'
At that Roger went slightly pale, for he knew that they were now in a very tight corner. With apparent calm he shrugged and agreed. Anxiously he watched as their portmanteaux were unstrapped and taken down by some of the soldiers from the coach roof. The first to be opened was that which held the uniforms and there, neatly folded, right on top, was Roger's dark-blue tail coat with its gold epaulettes and the cross of a Commander of the Legion of Honour on the breast.
Too late he cursed himself as a fool for not having left it behind. But he had expected to change into it after crossing the Rhine, as once in France, it would have assured him a coach with four horses and priority at the Post-houses for the remainder of their journey to Paris.
'Donnerwetter!’ exclaimed the Prussian officer. 'What have we here?'
'A souvenir, Herr Kapitan' Roger asserted swiftly. 'I acquired it for twenty marks from a hospital orderly in Minister.'
‘Ach so!' the Captain scowled. 'That we shall see.' Picking up the coat with one hand, he drew a pistol from his belt with the other, pointed it at Roger and added :
'Get out of the coach. Hand the pistol in your belt to my sergeant, then take your coat off and put this one on.'
There was nothing for it but to obey, so Roger stepped down into the road and put on his uniform coat. It fitted like a glove.
'As I thought,' sneered the Prussian. 'You are a dog of a Frenchman, trying to get across the river to your swinish countrymen.'
While he had been speaking a sergeant had taken from the portmanteau the soiled but still bright scarlet uniform of the Coldstream Guards, in which Charles had been captured. The Captain stared at it for a moment, then said, 'That is not a French uniform. Surely it is English. How comes it here ?'
'It is mine,' declared Charles in his excellent German. ‘I am a British officer.'
'If that be so, what are you doing in the company of this French spawn of hell?'
Charles smiled. 'I am his prisoner, Herr Kapitan, or was until you appeared on the scene and rescued me. I am travelling with him only because he had captured me and, in exchange for my life, I gave him my parole.'
For a moment Roger was quite shocked that Charles should have so brazenly gone over to the enemy. But then he saw the sense of it. Not to have claimed immunity as an ally of the Prussians would have been absurd, and had their positions been reversed it was what he would have done himself.
The third uniform was obviously Dopet's and, as he could speak only a few words of German, he was swiftly identified as Roger's servant. A soldier mounted the box in his place and he was ordered into the coach. Roger was told to change back into his civilian coat and the three uniforms were repacked in the portmanteaux. The Captain then put his Lieutenant in charge of the prisoners and despatched them in the coach with a small escort up the road.
After about a mile it emerged from the pine woods to some open farmlands, on the far side of which was a fair-sized farmhouse. The coach pulled up in front of it. The prisoners were ordered out and marched inside. In a room on the right of the entrance an adjutant was sitting at a table on which there was a litter of papers. The Lieutenant reported to him and the prisoners were brought it.
Roger now had a choice. He could swear that he was in fact a British secret agent, and hope that Charles's testimony would convince them that he was speaking the truth; or admit that he was a French officer. But he feared that if he took the former course it was more likely that Charles's testimony in his favour would make the Prussians believe that Charles was a liar and also a Frenchman in disguise. In consequence, when questioned by the adjutant, he decided that it would be better to ensure at least Charles's continued freedom by maintaining his own supposed role and by giving his high rank in hope of good treatment.
To have been caught like this when so nearly out of the wood was utterly infuriating, but he endeavoured to console himself with the thought that it was unlikely that he would remain a prisoner for very long. The Emperor's army had been shattered. It would prove impossible for even him to raise another of even a third the size of the forces now arrayed against him. North, south, east and west, he was menaced and surrounded by bitter enemies who were determined to put an end his career as a wholesale murderer. Either he must save all that remained to him of his Empire by agreeing to an humiliating peace in the near future, or be completely crushed soon after the New Year. So, in either case, Roger felt that he could count on being restored to liberty within a few months at most.
He had only just given particulars of himself to the adjutant when a babble of guttural German voices sounded in the narrow hall of the farmhouse. A Colonel put his head round the door and looked in. The adjutant cried to him joyfully.
'Herr Oberst, we have just taken an important prisoner. No less than Colonel Comte de Breuc, a Commander of the Legion of Honour and one of Napoleon's A.D.C.s.'
The Colonel turned and spoke to his companions outside. Next moment they came pressing into the room, led by a burly figure with a grey, walrus moustache, dressed in a plain, ill-fitting jacket, wearing a floppy, peaked cap and smoking a meerschaum pipe. Roger recognised him at once from descriptions he had had, as Blucher.