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But had not Ottensen spoken as though these were quite usual practices? It looked as though this purely external unwarlike training of the army were being erected into a principle. The first day at the practice-camp was entirely taken up by settling into quarters. The tables were laid at six o'clock in the evening.
Ottensen was not a highly-gifted soldier; he was no model military instructor; but he was a fine horseman, had a cool head, plenty of dash, and some keen mother-wit to boot: a born leader of scouts. And yet these brilliant qualities were sacrificed to outward show, and were let go to waste for want of use! One good cavalry officer the less; that was bad enough.
Two infantry regiments with a mile of transport, and behind them four batteries and four squadrons of horse. All had marched gaily past each other at about half an hour's interval! Not a shot fired! No, thanks never again!" At a cross-road Ottensen took leave of them. From afar he waved once more his immaculately-gloved right hand. Reimers rode on in silence.
The blind old man fled to Ottensen, in the Danish territory, where he expired. Napoleon, after confiscating sixty millions worth of English goods on his way through Leipzig, entered Berlin on the 17th of October, 1806.
They were brutally denied by the Emperor, and returned to Braunschweig to try and save the unhappy duke from imprisonment. It contained the wounded duke on his way to Altona, where he died on November 10, 1806, in a small house at Ottensen, 'You will take care, wrote Zach to Gauss, in 1803, 'that his great name shall also be written on the firmament.
"Not seen you for a long time, Reimers!" he laughed, as the battery marched by. "Just look; these chaps climb like monkeys!" Reimers nodded gaily to his lively friend. It was indeed a pleasure to watch the agile hussars. "Wait a bit!" said Ottensen, "I'll ride a little way with you." He asked Senior-lieutenant Frommelt politely for permission, and sent his men back in charge of a sergeant.
Ottensen smiled, well pleased, and said: "Well, perhaps so!" "They climb the trees well," continued the artilleryman. "I should think so!" said Ottensen. "Trees, corn-stacks, church-towers, roofs of houses, telegraph-posts, and devil knows what besides mountain-tops too, only there aren't any hereabouts." "Perhaps there will be during the manœuvres."
The officer galloped up closer to the marching battery. Reimers recognised an old companion from the Military Academy. "You, Ottensen?" he cried. "What a strange chance!" "Isn't it?" said the hussar. "Pity I've no time to stop. I must teach my chaps to scout!" They exchanged a pressure of the hand; then the cavalry officer spurred on his horse, and disappeared in a cloud of yellow dust.
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