"By Jove, it'll be grand if we beat Boney after all!" Harry said drowsily. A doctor bent over a man lying beside him. The Colonel said urgently: "Can't you get this boy to the rear when the cavalry draws off again?"
A cursory glance was cast at Harry. "Waste of time," said the doctor. "I'm sorry, but I've enough on my hands with those I can save."
The Colonel said no more. Harry seemed to be dropping asleep. Audley stayed holding his hand, but looked up at a mounted officer of the Royal Staff Corps who was standing close by. "What's happening?"
"Our cavalry's coming up. By God, in the very nick of time too! I think Grant must have brought back his fellows from the Nivelles road. Yes, by Jove, those are the 13th Light Dragoons! Oh, well done! Go at them, you devils, go at them!"
His excitement seemed to rouse Harry. He opened his eyes, and said faintly: "Are we winning?"
"Yes, Grant's brigade is driving the French off the plateau."
"Oh, splendid!" He smiled. "I say, you won't be able to call me a Johnny Newcome any longer, will you?"
"No, that I shan't."
Harry relapsed into silence. Outside the dogged square Grant's light dragoons had formed, and charged the confused mass of French cavalry, hurling it back from the plateau and pursuing it right the way down the slope to the low ground near the orchard of Hougoumont. In a short while, the plateau, which had seethed with steel helmets, copper crests, towering white plumes, and heavy bearskin shakos, was swept bare of all but Allied troops, mounds of French dead and wounded, and riderless horses, some of them wandering aimlessly about with blood streaming from their wounds, some neighing piteously from the ground where they lay, others quietly cropping the trampled grass.
The Colonel bent over Lord Harry. "I must go, Harry."