That night the Danish army retreated to Heiligenhaven, but some German Reiters that were attached to it were so unsteady that they speedily turned the retreat into a flight; and when the harbour was reached the cavalry crowded on to the mole to seize all the transport-vessels for themselves. Sir Donald Mackay, who was himself wounded, was not the man to suffer his regiment to be sacrificed; he calmly ordered his pikemen to advance, swept the whole of the Reiters into the sea, seized the nearest ship, brought others out of the roadstead and proceeded to the work of embarkation. The last boat's load shoved off surrounded by the enemy's horse, and the last of the Scots, a gallant boy named Murchison, though wounded in the head and shot through the arm, swam off to the boat under a heavy fire, only to die two days later of his injuries. The rest of the Danish army, thirty-five troops of horse and forty companies of foot, surrendered without a blow. Hence it is hardly surprising that, when next the Scots found themselves in quarters alongside Danish horse, there was a furious riot which cost the lives of seven or eight men before it could be suppressed. But in truth Mackay's regiment was so much weakened by its losses that both colonel and lieutenant-colonel returned perforce to Scotland to raise recruits.
I shall not follow the various small actions of the earlier part of the campaign of 1628 in Holstein, though many of them were brilliant enough. It must suffice that Scotch and English fought constantly side by side not only against the enemy, but once riotously against the Danes themselves, whom they considered to be unduly favoured in the matter of rations. In May the Imperialists moved up in force to occupy Stralsund; and the burghers having appealed to Christian for assistance received from him the seven companies, now reduced to eight hundred men, of Mackay's regiment.
On arrival their commanding officer at once selected the most dangerous post in the defences, as in honour bound, and for six weeks the regiment was harassed to death by exhausting duty. The men took their very meals at their posts, and Monro, who was now a major, mentions that he never once took off his clothes. They suffered heavily too from the enemy's fire, a single cannon shot strewing the walls with the brains of no fewer than fourteen men; but still they held out. At last Wallenstein came up in person, impatient at the delay, and vowed that he would take the town in three nights though it hung by a chain between heaven and earth. His first assault was hurled back by the Scots with the loss of a thousand men. But the Highlanders also had been severely punished; three officers and two hundred men had been killed outright, and seven more officers were wounded. On the following night the attack was renewed and again repulsed, but the garrison was now compelled to open a parley in order to gain time; and the negotiations were prolonged until the arrival of a second Scottish regiment under Lord Spynie enabled the defenders to renew their defiance.