Far in advance of the charging Allied line, Colborne, having crossed the ground between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, had reached the chaussee, and passed it, left-shouldering his regiment forward to ascend the slope towards La Belle Alliance.
To the right, Vivian had advanced his brigade, placing himself at the head of the 18th Hussars. "Eighteenth! You will, I know, follow me!" he said, and was answered by one of his sergeant-majors: "Ay, General! to hell, if you'll lead us!"
Taking up his position on the flank of the leading half-squadron, holding his reins in his injured right hand, which, though it seemed reposed in a sling, was just capable of grasping them, he led the whole brigade forward at the trot. As the hussars cleared the front on Maitland's right, the Guards and Vandeleur's light dragoons cheered them on, and they charged down on to the plain, sweeping the French up in their advance past the eastern hedge of Hougoumont towards the chaussee at La Belle Alliance.
Through the dense smoke laying over the ground the Duke galloped down the line. When the Riflemen saw him, they sent up a cheer, but he called out: "No cheering, my lads, but forward and complete your victory!" and rode on, through the smother, out into the sea of dead, to where Adam's brigade was halted on the ridge of La Belle Alliance, a little way from where some French battalions had managed to re-form.
The Duke, learning from Adam that the brigade had been halted for the purpose of closing the files in, scrutinised the French battalions closely for a moment, and then said decidedly: "They won't stand: better attack them!"
Baron Muffling, looking along the line from his position on the left flank, saw the General Advance through the lifting smoke. Kielmansegg's, Ompteda's and Pack's shattered brigades remained where they stood all day, but everywhere else the regiments charged forward, leaving behind them an unbroken red line of their own dead, marking the position where, for over eight hours of cannonading, of cavalry charges, and of massed infantry attacks, the British and German troops had held their ground.
From Papelotte to Hougoumont the hillocky plain in front was covered with dead and wounded. Near the riddled walls of La Haye Sainte the cuirassiers lay in mounds of men and horses. The corn which had waved shoulder-high in the morning was everywhere trodden down into clay. On the rising ground of La Belle Alliance the Old Guard was making its last stand, fighting off the fugitives, who, trying to find shelter in its squares, threatened to overwhelm them. These three squares, with one formed by Reille, south of Hougoumont, were the only French troops still standing firm in the middle of the rout. With the cessation of artillery fire by the hollow road the smoke was clearing away, but over the ruins of Hougoumont it still rose in a slow, black column. Those of the batteries which had been able to follow the advance were firing into the mass of French on the southern ridge; musketry crackled as the Old Guard, with Napoleon and his staff in the middle of their squares, retreated step by step, fighting a heroic rearguard action against Adam's brigade and Hew Halkett's Hanoverians. Where Vivian, with Vandeleur in support, was sweeping the ground east and south of Hougoumont, fierce cavalry skirmishing was in progress, and the Middle Guard was trying to re-form its squares to hold the hussars at bay.
Muffling, detaching a battery from Ziethen's Corps, led it at a gallop to the centre of the Allied position. He met the Duke by La Haye Sainte. His lordship called triumphantly to him from a distance: "Well! You see Macdonnell has held Hougoumont!"
Muffling, who found himself unable to think of what the Guards at Hougoumont must have endured without a lump coming into his throat, knew the Duke well enough to realise that his brief sentence was his lordship's way of expressing his admiration, and nodded.
The sun was sinking fast; in the gathering dusk musket-balls were hissing in every direction. Uxbridge, who had come scatheless through the day, was hit in the knee by a shot passing over Copenhagen's withers, and sang out: "By God! I've got it at last!"