Frequent councils were held in the Swedish camp. With the king marched his brother Adolph, prince of Bipont, who had command over the army; Robert Douglas; Henry Horn, relative of that Horn who had been slain by the scythe of a peasant at Chenstohova; Waldemar, Prince of Denmark, and that Miller who had left his military glory at the foot of Yasna Gora; Aschemberg, the ablest cavalry leader among the Swedes; Hammerskiold, who commanded the artillery; and the old robber Marshal Arwid Wittemberg, famed for rapacity, living on the last of his health, for he was eaten by the Gallic disease; Forgell, and many others, all leaders skilled in the capture of cities, and in the field yielding in genius to the king only.
These men were terrified in their hearts lest the whole army with the king should perish through toil, lack of food, and the fury of the Poles. Old Wittemberg advised the king directly against the campaign: “How will you go, O King,” said he, “to the Russian regions after an enemy who destroys everything on the way, but is unseen himself? What will you do if horses lack not only hay, but even straw from the roofs of cottages, and men fall from exhaustion? Where are the armies to come to our aid, where are the castles in which to draw breath and rest our weary limbs? My fame is not equal to yours; but were I Karl Gustav, I would not expose that glory acquired by so many victories to the fickle fortune of war.”
To which Karl Gustav answered: “And neither would I, were I Wittemberg.”
Then he mentioned Alexander of Macedon, with whom he liked to be compared, and marched forward, pursuing Charnyetski. Charnyetski, not having forces so great nor so well trained, retreated before him, but retreated like a wolf ever ready to turn on his enemy. Sometimes he went in advance of the Swedes, sometimes at their flanks, and sometimes in deep forests he let them go in advance; so that while they thought themselves the pursuers, he, in fact, was the hunter. He cut off the unwary; here and there he hunted down a whole party, destroyed foot-regiments marching slowly, attacked provision-trains. The Swedes never knew where he was. More than once in the darkness of night they began to fire from muskets and cannons into thickets, thinking that they had an enemy before them. They were mortally wearied; they marched in cold, in hunger, in affliction, and that vir molestissimus (most harmful man) hung about them continually, as a hail-cloud hangs over a grainfield.
At last they attacked him at Golamb, not far from the junction of the Vyepr and the Vistula. Some Polish squadrons being ready for battle charged the enemy, spreading disorder and dismay. In front sprang Volodyovski with his Lauda squadron, and bore down Waldemar, prince of Denmark; but the two Kavetskis, Samuel and Yan, urged from the hill the armored squadron against English mercenaries under Wilkinson, and devoured them in a moment, as a pike gulps a whiting; and Pan Malavski engaged so closely with the Prince of Bipont that men and horses were confounded like dust which two whirlwinds sweeping from opposite quarters bring together and turn into one circling column. In the twinkle of an eye the Swedes were pushed to the Vistula, seeing which Douglas hastened to the rescue with chosen horsemen. But even these reinforcements could not check the onset; the Swedes began to spring from the high bank to the ice, falling dead so thickly that they lay black on the snowfield, like letters on white paper. Waldemar, Prince of Denmark, fell; Wilkinson fell; and the Prince of Bipont, thrown from his horse, broke his leg. But of Poles both Kavetskis fell; killed also were Malavski, Rudavski, Rogovski, Tyminski, Hoinski, and Porvanyetski. Volodyovski alone, though he dived among the Swedish ranks like a seamew in water, came out without having suffered the slightest wound.
Now Karl Gustav himself came up with his main force and with artillery. Straightway the form of the battle changed. Charnyetski’s other regiments, undisciplined and untrained, could not take position in season; some had not their horses in readiness, others had been in distant villages, and in spite of orders to be always ready, were taking their leisure in cottages. When the enemy pressed suddenly on these men, they scattered quickly and began to retreat to the Vyepr. Therefore Charnyetski gave orders to sound the retreat so as to spare those regiments that had opened the battle. Some of the fleeing went beyond the Vistula; others to Konskovoli, leaving the field and the glory of the victory to Karl; for specially those who had crossed the Vyepr were long pursued by the squadrons of Zbrojek and Kalinski, who remained yet with the Swedes.
There was delight beyond measure in the Swedish camp. No great trophies fell to the king, it is true—sacks of oats, and a few empty wagons; but it was not at that time a question of plunder for Karl. He comforted himself with this—that victory followed his steps as before; that barely had he shown himself when he inflicted defeat on that very Charnyetski on whom the highest hopes of Yan Kazimir and the Commonwealth were founded. He could trust that the news would run through the whole country; that every mouth would repeat, “Charnyetski is crushed;” that the timid would exaggerate the proportions of the defeat, and thus weaken hearts and take courage from those who had grasped their weapons at the call of the confederation of Tyshovtsi.
So when they brought in and placed at his feet those bags of oats, and with them the bodies of Wilkinson and Prince Waldemar, he turned to his fretful generals and said—
“Unwrinkle your foreheads, gentlemen, for this is the greatest victory which I have had for a
