for a minute and give us a chance of
hitting back. And we hit back pretty hard too that time, for we were
cold and vicious and savage, and I for one felt that I cared no more for
the horsemen than if they had been so many sheep on Corriemuir. One
gets past being afraid or thinking of one's own skin after a while, and
you just feel that you want to make some one pay for all you have gone
through. We took our change out of the lancers that time; for they had
no breastplates to shield them, and we cleared seventy of them out of
their saddles at a volley. Maybe, if we could have seen seventy mothers
weeping for their lads, we should not have felt so pleased over it; but
then, men are just brutes when they are fighting, and have as much
thought as two bull pups when they've got one another by the throttle.

Then the colonel did a wise stroke; for he reckoned that this would
stave off the cavalry for five minutes, so he wheeled us into line, and
got us back into a deeper hollow out of reach of the guns before they
could open again. This gave us time to breathe, and we wanted it too,
for the regiment had been melting away like an icicle in the sun.
But bad as it was for us, it was a deal worse for some of the others.
The whole of the Dutch Belgians were off by this time helter-skelter,
fifteen thousand of them, and there were great gaps left in our line
through which the French cavalry rode as pleased them best. Then the
French guns had been too many and too good for ours, and our heavy horse
had been cut to bits, so that things were none too merry with us.
On the other hand, Hougoumont, a blood-soaked ruin, was still ours, and
every British regiment was firm; though, to tell the honest truth, as a
man is bound to do, there were a sprinkling of red coats among the blue
ones who made for the rear. But these were lads and stragglers, the
faint hearts that are found everywhere, and I say again that no regiment
flinched. It was little we could see of the battle; but a man would be
blind not to know that all the fields behind us were covered with flying
men. But then, though we on the right wing knew nothing of it, the
Prussians had begun to show, and Napoleon had set 20,000 of his men to
face them, which made up for ours that had bolted, and left us much as
we began. That was all dark to us, however; and there was a time, when
the French horsemen had flooded in between us and the rest of the army,
that we thought we were