"Where's Lambert?"
"Just come up into the front line, which means we haven't a single man in reserve on the left - unless you count Bylandt's heroes as reserves."
"I shouldn't care to trust to them," admitted the Colonel. "Did their officers ever succeed in re-forming them?"
"I don't know. Pack's fellows have started a tale that they've all gone off for a picnic in the Forest. I never saw such a damnable rout in all my life! It was God's mercy it happened where it did, and not before some of our raw regiments. You were there, weren't you? Is it true that Picton's rascals fired after them?"
"They tried to, but we restrained them. Does anyone know what is going to happen next?"
"I certainly don't. All I do know is that I wish to God we had some of the fellows stationed at Hal here," replied Gordon candidly.
For over half an hour no sign of a fresh attack was made by the enemy. Speculation was rife in the Allied lines; no one could imagine what the next move was going to be, or against what part of the line it would be directed. At Hougoumont, all but two companies of Byng's brigade, which were left to guard the Colours, had been drawn into the fight in the orchards and wood. Colonel Hepburn, whom the Prince of Orange had seen advancing with the remaining companies of the Scots Guards to Lord Saltoun's relief, had taken over the command from him after assisting him to drive Foy's men out of the orchard; and Saltoun had retired to his brigade, with just one-third of the men of the light companies whom he had led into action.
The gradual absorption of Byng's entire brigade in the defence of the Hougoumont made it imperative to reinforce the right of the line. Shortly before four o'clock, an aide-de-camp was sent off to bring up some young Brunswick troops, held in reserve, to fill the gap. This had hardly been accomplished when the firing on the Allied right centre suddenly became so violent that after a very few minutes of it the Duke withdrew his troops farther back from the crest of the position. Old soldiers with a score of battles behind them admitted, as they lay flat on their bellies under the rain of grape, round shot, and spherical case, that they had never experienced such a cannonading. Occasionally a greater explosion than the rest would roar above the din as an ammunition wagon was struck, and a column of smoke would rise vertically in the air, spreading like an umbrella.
Everyone knew that the cannonade was the prelude to an attack, but when those on the high ground on the right of the Charleroi road saw forming across the valley on the ridge of La Belle Alliance, not infantry divisions but huge masses of cavalry, they were thunderstruck. It soon became evident that the attack was going to be directed against the right centre of the Allied line, for the squadrons, which had first appeared on the east of the Charleroi road, crossed it, obl quing to their left, and advanced slowly but in beautiful order through the fields of deep corn that lay between the advance posts of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.
Twenty-four squadrons of Milhaud's cuirassiers led the cavalcade in first line, their burnished breastplates and helmets making them look like a wall of steel. They were supported by nineteen squadrons of the light cavalry of the guard: red lancers with high white plumes, gaudy horse trappings, and fluttering pennons, in second line; and, in third line, the Chausseurs a Cheval in green dolmans embroidered richly with gold, black bearskin shakos on their heads, and fur-trimmed pelisses swinging from their shoulders.