So dark, so
motionless, against that grim light, he might have been the very
spirit of Battle brooding over that terrible valley. As I gazed,
he raised his hat high in the air, and at the signal, with a low,
deep roar like a breaking wave, the whole British army flooded
over their ridge and came rolling down into the valley.
Long steel-fringed lines of red and blue, sweeping waves of
cavalry, horse batteries rattling and bounding--down they came on
to our crumbling ranks. It was over. A yell of agony, the agony
of brave men who see no hope, rose from one flank to the other,
and in an instant the whole of that noble army was swept in a
wild, terror- stricken crowd from the field. Even now, dear
friends, I cannot, as you see, speak of that dreadful moment with
a dry eye or with a steady voice.
At first I was carried away in that wild rush, whirled off like a
straw in a flooded gutter. But, suddenly, what should I see
amongst the mixed regiments in front of me but a group of stern
horsemen, in silver and grey, with a broken and tattered standard
held aloft in the heart of them! Not all the might of England
and of Prussia could break the Hussars of Conflans.
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