instant of gleaming breastplates, waving swords, tossing manes, fierce
red nostrils opening and shutting, and hoofs pawing the air before us;
and then down came the line of muskets, and our bullets smacked up
against their armour like the clatter of a hailstorm upon a window. I
fired with the rest, and then rammed down another charge as fast as I
could, staring out through the smoke in front of me, where I could see
some long, thin thing which napped slowly backwards and forwards. A
bugle sounded for us to cease firing, and a whiff of wind came to clear
the curtain from in front of us, and then we could see what had
happened.

I had expected to see half that regiment of horse lying on the ground;
but whether it was that their breastplates had shielded them, or
whether, being young and a little shaken at their coming, we had fired
high, our volley had done no very great harm. About thirty horses lay
about, three of them together within ten yards of me, the middle one
right on its back with its four legs in the air, and it was one of these
that I had seen flapping through the smoke. Then there were eight or ten
dead men and about as many wounded, sitting dazed on the grass for the
most part, though one was shouting "_Vive l'Empereur!_" at the top of
his voice. Another fellow who had been shot in the thigh--a great
black-moustached chap he was too--leaned his back against his dead horse
and, picking up his carbine, fired as coolly as if he had been shooting
for a prize, and hit Angus Myres, who was only two from me, right
through the forehead. Then he out with his hand to get another carbine
that lay near, but before he could reach it big Hodgson, who was the
pivot man of the Grenadier company, ran out and passed his bayonet
through his throat, which was a pity, for he seemed to be a very fine
man.

At first I thought that the cuirassiers had run away in the smoke; but
they were not men who did that very easily. Their horses had swerved at
our volley, and they had raced past our square and taken the fire of the
two other ones beyond. Then they broke through a hedge, and coming on a
regiment of Hanoverians who were in line, they treated them as they
would have treated us if we had not been so quick, and cut them to
pieces in an instant. It was dreadful to see the big Germans running
and screaming while the cuirassiers stood up in their stirrups to have a
better sweep for their long, heavy swords, and cut and stab