says that it was Cameron who formed line
with the 38th under a violent fire, and, without returning a shot, ran
in upon the French grenadiers with the bayonet and hurled them
triumphantly over the crest. Picton, on the other hand, declares that
it was the light companies of the 74th and the 88th, under Major Smith,
an officer of great daring--who fell in the moment of victory--that
flung the last French down over the cliff. Who can decide when such
experts, and actors in the actual scene, differ?

The result, however, as seen from the French side, is clear. The
French, Marbot records, "found themselves driven in a heap down the
deep descent up which they had climbed, and the English lines followed
them half-way down firing murderous volleys. At this point we lost a
general, 2 colonels, 80 officers, and 700 or 800 men." "The English,"
he adds in explanation of this dreadful loss of life, "were the best
marksmen in Europe, the only troops who were perfectly practised in the
use of small arms, whence their firing was far more accurate than that
of any other infantry."

A gleam of humour at this point crosses the grim visage of battle.
Picton, on lying down in his bivouac the night before the battle, had
adorned his head with a picturesque and highly coloured nightcap. The
sudden attack of the French woke him; he clapped on cloak and cocked
hat, and rode to the fighting line, when he personally led the attack
which flung the last of Regnier's troops down the slope. At the moment
of the charge he took off his cocked hat to wave the troops onward;
this revealed the domestic head-dress he unconsciously wore, and the
astonished soldiers beheld their general on flame with warlike fury
gesticulating martially in a nightcap! A great shout of laughter went
up from the men as they stopped for a moment to realise the spectacle;
then with a tempest of mingled laughter and cheers they flung
themselves on the enemy.

Meanwhile Ney had formed his attack on the English left, held by
Craufurd and the famous light division. Marbot praises the
characteristic tactics of the British in such fights. "After having,
as we do," he says, "garnished their front with skirmishers, they post
their principal forces out of sight, holding them all the time
sufficiently near to the key of the position to be able to attack the
enemy the instant they reach it; and this attack, made unexpectedly on
assailants who have lost heavily, and think the