victory already theirs,
succeeds almost invariably." "We had," he adds, "a melancholy
experience of this art at Busaco." Craufurd, a soldier of fine skill,
made exactly such a disposition of his men. Some rocks at the edge of
the ravine formed natural embrasures for the English guns under Ross;
below them the Rifles were flung out as skirmishers; behind them the
German infantry were the only visible troops; but in a fold of the
hill, unseen, Craufurd held the 43rd and 52nd regiments drawn up in
line.

Ney's attack, as might be expected, was sudden and furious. The
English, in the grey dawn, looking down the ravine, saw three huge
masses start from the French lines and swarm up the slope. To climb an
ascent so steep, vexed by skirmishers on either flank, and scourged by
the guns which flashed from the summit, was a great and most daring
feat--yet the French did it. Busaco, indeed, is memorable as showing
the French fighting quality at its highest point. General Simon led
Loison's attack right up to the lips of the English guns, and in the
dreadful charge its order was never disturbed nor its speed arrested.
"Ross's guns," says Napier, "were worked with incredible quickness, yet
their range was palpably contracted every round; the enemy's shot came
singing up in a sharper key; the English skirmishers, breathless and
begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent; the artillery
drew back"--and over the edge of the hill came the bearskins and the
gleaming bayonets of the French! General Simon led the attack so
fiercely home that he was the first to leap across the English
entrenchments, when an infantry soldier, lingering stubbornly after his
comrades had fallen back, shot him point-blank through the face. The
unfortunate general, when the fight was over, was found lying in the
redoubt amongst the dying and the dead, with scarcely a human feature
left. He recovered, was sent as a prisoner to England, and was
afterwards exchanged, but his horrible wound made it impossible for him
to serve again.

Craufurd had been watching meanwhile with grim coolness the onward rush
of the French. They came storming and exultant, a wave of martial
figures, edged with a spray of fire and a tossing fringe of bayonets,
over the summit of the hill; when suddenly Craufurd, in a shrill tone,
called on his reserves to attack. In an instant there rose, as if out
of the ground, before the eyes of the astonished French, the se