Now there were but long, ragged fringes of broken and exhausted
regiments upon the two ridges, but a real army of dead and
wounded lay between. For two miles in length and half a mile
across the ground was strewed and heaped with them. But
slaughter was no new sight to me, and it was not that which held
me spellbound. It was that up the long slope of the British
position was moving a walking forest-black, tossing, waving,
unbroken. Did I not know the bearskins of the Guard? And did I
not also know, did not my soldier's instinct tell me, that it was
the last reserve of France; that the Emperor, like a desperate
gamester, was staking all upon his last card? Up they went and
up--grand, solid, unbreakable, scourged with musketry, riddled
with grape, flowing onward in a black, heavy tide, which lapped
over the British batteries. With my glass I could see the
English gunners throw themselves under their pieces or run to the
rear. On rolled the crest of the bearskins, and then, with a
crash which was swept across to my ears, they met the British
infantry.
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