watch]

However firmly they may stand, in faith,
Their firmness must have bounds to it, because
There are bounds to human strength!... Your, Grace,
To leftward now, to spirit Zieten on.

WELLINGTON

Good. It is time! I think he well be late,
However, in the field.

[MUFFLING goes. Enter an aide, breathless.]

AIDE

Your Grace, the Ninety-fifth are patience-spent
With standing under fire so passing long.
They writhe to charge--or anything but stand!

WELLINGTON

Not yet. They shall have at 'em later on.
At present keep them firm.

[Exit aide. The Allied squares stand like little red-brick castles,
independent of each other, and motionless except at the dry hurried
command "Close up!" repeated every now and then as they are slowly
thinned. On the other hand, under their firing and bayonets a
disorder becomes apparent among the charging horse, on whose
cuirasses the bullets snap like stones on window-panes. At this
the Allied cavalry waiting in the rear advance; and by degrees they
deliver the squares from their enemies, who are withdrawn to their
own position to prepare for a still more strenuous assault. The
point of view shifts.]

SCENE V

THE SAME. THE WOMEN'S CAMP NEAR MONT SAINT-JEAN

[On the sheltered side of a clump of trees at the back of the
English position camp-fires are smouldering. Soldiers' wives,
mistresses, and children from a few months to five or six years
of age, sit on the ground round the fires or on armfuls of straw
from the adjoining farm. Wounded soldiers lie near the women.
The wind occasionally brings the smoke and smell of battle into
the encampment, the noise being continuous. Two waggons stand
near; also a surgeon's horse in charge of a batman, laden with
bone-saws, knives, probes, tweezers, and other surgical instruments.
Behind lies a woman who has just given birth to a child, which a
second woman is holding.

Many of the other women are shredding lint, the elder children
assisting. Some are dressing the slighter wounds of the soldiers
who have come in here instead of going further. Along the road
near is a continual procession of bearers of wounded men to the
rear. The occupants of the camp take hardly any notice of the
thundering of the cannon. A camp-follower is playing a fiddle
near. Another woma