Freemantle rode among them, asking for their commander in English, in painfully simple French, and in the two or three words of German he could command. Those three words were fortunately sufficient—indeed, he hardly needed to speak at all, for his scarlet coat told them what he was, and incurious or no, they pointed him up the line almost before he opened his mouth. Freemantle kept following their directions, hoping this quixotic quest would in fact lead to the commander. At last a thin, unhealthy-looking fellow identified himself in broken English as a staff officer and motioned Freemantle to follow his equally thin and unhealthy-looking horse—and then Freemantle came face to face with Lieutenant General Hans von Zieten.
The general looked him once up and down. He was a solidly built ma
