Though his staff fell about him, he continued to ride up and down his lines, rallying failing troops, restraining men who, maddened by the rain of deadly shot, could hardly be kept from launching themselves through the smoke in a desperate charge against their persecutors. "Wait a little longer, my lads: you shall have at them presently," he promised.
"By God, I thought I had heard enough of this man, but he far surpasses my expectations!" Uxbridge exclaimed. "It is not a man, but a god!"
De Lancey, the quartermaster-general, was struck by a spent cannonball at the Duke's side, and fell, imploring those who hurried to him not to move him, for he was done for. Behind the crumbling ranks of Alten's division was only the extenuated line of Lord Edward's cavalry. The Duke brought up the only remaining Brunswickers in person, and formed them to fill the gap. They marched up bravely, but the sight of the horrors all around them, and the dropping of men in their own ranks, shook them. They broke, and fell back, but shouting to his aide-de-camp to rally them, the Duke spurred after them, rounding them up, heartening them by word and gesture. Gordon and Audley raced after him, and the terrified soldiers were re-formed and led up again.
Uxbridge rode off like the wind, to bring up the cavalry from the left wing. He met Sir Hussey Vivian advancing to the centre of his own initiative, learned from him that the Prussians were at last arriving in force, and despatched a message to Vaneleur to move to the centre in Vivian's wake.
A staff officer met Vivian's brigade on its way to the centre, and exchanged his own wounded hunter for a trooper belonging to the 18th Hussars. "The Duke has won the battle if only we could get the damned Dutch to advance!" he told one of the officers.
The brigade, coming up behind the infantry lines from their comparatively quiet position on the left flank, could see no sign of victory in the desolation which surrounded them. Dead and dying men lay all over the ground; mutilated horses wandered about in aimless circles; cannonballs were tossing up the trampled earth in great gashes; and a pall of smoke hung over all. Vivian led the brigade over the chaussee, and saw Lord Edward Somerset, in a Life Guardsman's helmet, with a bare couple of squadrons drawn up west of the road. He called out: "Lord Edward, where is your brigade?"
"Here," replied Lord Edward.
Audley, engaged in rallying the Brunswickers, heard Gordon's voice raised above the whistle and hum of shot: "For God's sake, my Lord, don't expose yourself! This is no work for you!"
The next instant Audley saw him fall, but he could neither desert his post to go to him nor discover whether he were dead or alive. Gordon was carried off; Brunswickers, their panic checked, saw Vivian's hussar brigade in support of them, and stood their ground; the Duke rode off to another part of the line.
Colonel Audley, his senses deadened to the iron rain about him, struggled after, saw Lord March, dismounted and kneeling on the ground, supporting a wounded man in his arms, and shouted to him: "March! March! Is Gordon alive?"