wder, his uniform torn, and
brought the troop at full gallop to the central ridge, explaining as
they rode the Duke's orders, that, when the French cavalry charged
home, Mercer and his men should take refuge under the bayonets of the
nearest square.

As they neared the crest at a gallop, Mercer describes the humming as
of innumerable and gigantic gnats that filled the bullet-torn air. He
found his position betwixt two squares of Brunswickers, in whose ranks
the French guns were making huge gaps, while the officers and sergeants
were busy literally pushing the men together. "The men," says Mercer,
"were like wooden figures, semi-paralysed with the horrors of the fight
about them;" and to have attempted to run to them for shelter would
certainly have been the signal for the whole mass to dissolve. Through
the smoke ahead, not a hundred yards distant, were the French squadrons
coming on at a trot. The British guns were swung round, unlimbered,
loaded with case-shot, and fire opened with breathless speed. Still
the French came on; but as gun after gun came into action, their pace
slowed down to a walk, till the front files could endure the terrific
fire no longer. They turned round and tried to ride back. "I actually
saw them," says Mercer, "using the pommels of their swords to fight
their way out of the _melee_." Some, made desperate by finding
themselves penned up at the very muzzles of the British guns, dashed
through their intervals, but without thinking of using their swords.
Presently the mass broke and ebbed, a flood of shattered squadrons,
down the slope. They rallied quickly, however, and their helmets could
be seen over the curve of the slope as the officers dressed the lines.

The French tirailleurs, meanwhile, crept up within forty yards of the
battery, and were busy shooting down Mercer's gunners. Mercer, to keep
his men steady, rode slowly to and fro in front of the muzzles of his
guns, the men standing with lighted port-fires. The tirailleurs,
almost within pistol-shot, seized the opportunity to take pot-shots at
him. He shook his glove, with the word "Scelerat," at one of them; the
fellow grinned, and took a leisurely aim at Mercer, the muzzle of his
gun following him as he turned to and fro in his promenade before his
own pieces. The Frenchman fired, and the ball passed at the back of
Mercer's neck into the forehead of the leading driver of one of his
guns.

But the cavalry was coming on aga