cers, and over
four hundred men out of five hundred and seventy had fallen in the
57th alone; not a third were left standing in the other regiments that
had been closely engaged throughout the day. Then Cole was ordered
up with his fourth division as a last hope, and this is how Sir William
Napier records their advance:--

"Such a gallant line, issuing from the midst of the smoke and
rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude,
startled the enemy's masses, then augmenting and pressing onwards
as to an assured victory; they wavered, hesitated, and vomiting
forth a storm of fire hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front,
while a fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery
whistled through the British ranks ... the English battalions,
struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking
ships; but suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their
terrible enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and
majesty the British soldier fights.

"In vain did Soult with voice and gesture animate his Frenchmen;
in vain did the hardiest veterans, breaking from the crowded
columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open
out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up,
and, fiercely striving, fire indiscriminately upon friends and
foes, while the horsemen hovering on the flank threatened to
charge the advancing line.

"Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry.

"No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm
weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were
bent on the dark columns in their front; their measured tread
shook the ground; their dreadful volleys swept away the head of
every formation; their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant
cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd as slowly,
and with a horrid carnage, it was pushed by the incessant vigour
of the attack to the farthest edge of the height. There the French
reserve, mixing with the struggling multitude, endeavoured to
restore the fight, but only augmented the irremediable disorder,
and the mighty mass, giving way like a loosened cliff, went
headlong down the steep; the rain flowed after in streams
discoloured with blood, and eighteen hundred unwounded men, the
remnant of six thousand unconquerable British s