"Oh, my God, not Gordon too?" March cried out in an anguished tone.
The Colonel pushed up to him, saw that the man in his arms was Canning, and almost flung himself out of the saddle.
A musketball had struck Canning in the stomach; he was dying fast, and in agony that made it difficult for him to speak. Some men of the 73rd Regiment had raised him to a sitting position with their knapsacks. He gasped out: "The Duke - is he safe?"
"Yes, yes, untouched!"
A ghastly smile flickered over Canning's mouth; he tried to clasp Audley's hand; turned his head a little on March's shoulder; managed to speak their names; and so died.
An agitated officer from Ghigny's brigade came riding up while March still held Canning's body in his arms. "Milord, mon Capitaine, je vous en prie! C'est Son Altesse lui meme qui est en ce moment blesse! Il faut venir tout de suite!"
March, lost in grief, seemed not to hear him. Colonel Audley, hardly less distressed, laid a hand on his shoulder. "He's gone, March. Lay him down. Slender Billy's hurt."
March raised his head, dashing the tears from his eyes. "What's that?" he glanced up at the Dutchman standing over them. The message was repeated: the Prince had been hit in the shoulder while leading some of General Kruse's Nassauers to the charge, and had fallen so heavily from his horse that the sense seemed to have been knocked out of him. March laid Canning's body down, and got up. "I'll come at once. Where is he?"
He rode away with the Dutch officer; Colonel Audley, consigning Canning's body to the care of an officer of Halkett's brigade, also mounted, and plunged off through the confusion to find the Duke again.
Vandeleur had come up from the left flank with his brigade of light dragoons, and, passing behind Vivian, had formed his squadrons more to the right, immediately in rear of Count D'Aubreme's Dutch-Belgian line battalions, brought up from Vieux Foriez to fill a gap on the right centre. Here they were exposed to a galling fire, but D'Aubreme's men in their front were weakening, and to have withdrawn out of range of the guns would have left the road open to the Dutch-Belgians for retreat. They closed their squadron intervals, as Vivian had done, to prevent the infantry passing through to the rear, and stood their ground, while Vandeleur, with some of his senior officers, bullied and persuaded the Dutch-Belgians into forming their front again.