in in solid squadrons, a column so
deep that when the leading files were within sixty yards of Mercer's
guns the rear of the great mass was still out of sight. The pace was a
deliberate trot. "They moved in profound silence," says Mercer, and
the only sound that could be heard from them, amidst the incessant roar
of battle, was the low, thunder-like reverberation of the ground
beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses, through which ran a
jangling ripple of sharp metallic sound, the ring of steel on steel.
The British gunners, on their part, showed a stern coolness fully equal
to the occasion. Every man stood steadily at his post, "the guns ready
loaded with round-shot first, and a case over it; the tubes were in the
vents, the port-fires glared and sputtered behind the wheels." The
column was led on this time by an officer in a rich uniform, his breast
covered with decorations, whose earnest gesticulations were strangely
contrasted with the solemn demeanour of those to whom they were
addressed. Mercer allowed the leading squadron to come within sixty
yards, then lifted his glove as the signal to fire. Nearly the whole
leading rank fell in an instant, while the round shot pierced the
column. The front, covered with struggling horses and men, was
impassable. Some of the braver spirits did break their way through,
only to fall, man and horse, at the very muzzles, of the guns. "Our
guns," says Mercer, "were served with astonishing activity, and men and
horses tumbled before them like nine-pins." Where the horse alone was
killed, the cuirassier could be seen stripping himself of his armour
with desperate haste to escape. The mass of the French for a moment
stood still, then broke to pieces and fled. Again they came on, with
exactly the same result. So dreadful was the carnage, that on the next
day, Mercer, looking back from the French ridge, could identify the
position held by his battery by the huge mound of slaughtered men and
horses lying in front of it. The French at last brought up a battery,
which opened a flanking fire on Mercer's guns; he swung round two of
his pieces to meet the attack, and the combat raged till, out of 200
fine horses in Mercer's troop, 140 lay dead or dying, and two men out
of every three were disabled.

Ney's thirteen cavalry charges on the British position were
magnificent, but they were a failure. They did not break a single
square, nor permanently disable a single gun.