He had not yet rejoined it, and yet the Royalists were right, for it was his spirit, the spirit of discipline, that was abroad in the army. The New Model was by no means perfect when it marched from Windsor at the end of April 1645. The old failings of insubordination, desertion, and plunder, natural enough among a body of men largely recruited by impressment, showed themselves abundantly at the outset of the march to Oxford, but they were put down with a strong hand, not by preaching, but by hanging. Nor was it by severity only that Fairfax brought men to their duty. According to custom, every regiment was told off in succession to furnish the rearguard, but when the turn of Fairfax's regiment came, the men claimed that, being the General's own, they had a right to a permanent place in the van. Fairfax said nothing, but simply jumped off his horse and tramped along in the midst of them in the rearguard; and after this there were no more quarrels over precedence. After a month in the field the newspapers could report that oaths, quarrelling and drunkenness were unknown in the New Model. "Yea, but let Cromwell be called back," they added; and before long this too was done. At six o'clock on the morning of the 13th of June, while Fairfax was sitting at a council of war, Cromwell marched into the camp at Kislingbury at the head of his regiment. It was but a small reinforcement of six hundred troopers, but as they rode in a cheer rose from the cavalry which was taken up by the whole army, as the word ran round the camp that Noll was come. [Sidenote: June 14.] Next day was fought the battle of Naseby. It was not a well-managed fight. After considerable shifting of position, so much prolonged that Rupert came to the conclusion that Fairfax wished to decline an engagement, the New Model Army was finally drawn up on the plateau of a ridge about a mile to the north-east of Naseby village. It lay behind the brow of a hill which slopes down somewhat steeply to a valley below called the Broadmoor, and was formed according to the usual fashion of the time. Six regiments of three thousand six hundred horse formed the right wing, seven thousand infantry under Skippon made up the centre, two thousand four hundred more horse under Ireton made the left. Ireton's flank was covered by a hedge, which by Cromwell's direction was lined with dismounted dragoons. The disposition of the Royalists was of the same kind, though their force was of little more than half the strength of the New Model. The right wing of cavalry was under Rupert, the centre of infantry under old Sir Jacob Astley, the left wing of cavalry under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. Each army held two or three regiments of infantry in reserve.