d. Adams, the general in
command of the brigade, rode up and asked him what he was going to do.
Colborne replied, "To make that column feel our fire," and, giving the
word, his men poured into the unprotected flank of the unfortunate
Guard a terrific volley. The 52nd, it should be noted, went into
action with upwards of one thousand bayonets, being probably the
strongest battalion in the field. Colborne had "nursed" his regiment
during the fight. He formed them into smaller squares than usual, and
kept them in shelter where possible, so that at this crisis the
regiment was still a body of great fighting force, and its firing was
of deadly volume and power. Adams swiftly brought the 71st to sustain
Colborne's attack, the Guards on the other flank also moved forward,
practically making a long obtuse angle of musketry fire, the two sides
of which were rapidly closing in on the head of the great French column.

The left company of the 52nd was almost muzzle to muzzle with the
French column, and had to press back, while the right companies were
swinging round to bring the whole line parallel with the flank of the
Guard; yet, though the answering fire of the Frenchmen was broken and
irregular, so deadly was it--the lines almost touching each
other--that, in three minutes, from the left front of the 52nd one
hundred and fifty men fell! When the right companies, however, had
come up into line with the left, Colborne cried, "Charge! charge!" The
men answered with a deep-throated, menacing shout, and dashed at the
enemy. Napoleon's far-famed Guard, the victors in a hundred fights,
shrank, the mass swayed to and fro, the men in the centre commenced to
fire in the air, and the whole great mass seemed to tumble, break into
units, and roll down the hill!

The 52nd and 71st came fiercely on, their officers leading. Some
squadrons of the 23rd Dragoons came at a gallop down the slope, and
literally smashed in upon the wrecked column. So wild was the
confusion, so dense the whirling smoke that shrouded the whole scene,
that some companies of the 52nd fired into the Dragoons, mistaking them
for the enemy; and while Colborne was trying to halt his line to remedy
the confusion, Wellington, who saw in this charge the sure pledge of
victory, rode up and shouted, "Never mind! go on! go on!"

Gambier, then an officer of the 52nd, gives a graphic description of
how that famous regiment fought at this stage:--

"A short time before,