[247] Details may be verified in Wellington, _Supplementary Dispatches_, xiii. p. 611. Beckwith’s brigade, the leading one of the Light Division, consisted of the 1/43rd, Elder’s Caçadores (the 3rd of that arm), and four companies of the 1/95th Rifles. It was waiting in column, on the road above the river, when Erskine’s aide-de-camp rode up, and asked the brigadier in a peremptory tone ‘why he did not cross.’ Beckwith at once struck off in the direction where he supposed the ford to be, but, missing his line in the fog, did not march sufficiently far to the right, and reached the Coa not at the true ford but at a hazardous passage nearly a mile nearer to Sabugal[248], where the water came up to the men’s arm-pits. Drummond’s brigade followed at a distance, and used the same wrong path. The cavalry, to whom Sir William Erskine had joined himself, taking their bearings from the Light Division, came down to the river not very far to its right, at a point some two miles more to the west than was intended. They lost much time in searching for a ford; by the time that they found one, the Light Division was already heavily engaged, and the passage ultimately discovered was so close to that force that the Dragoons came up almost in Drummond’s rear, instead of far out on his flank. [248] Wellington’s orders were to cross 2 miles at least above Sabugal. The actual crossing was only 1¼ miles above. Reynier’s pickets were close to the water’s edge, and opened a scattering fire on the head of Beckwith’s column while it was still struggling across the river. But they were easily driven off, and the brigade formed up on the further side, in the usual order of the Light Division, with a very strong skirmishing screen, composed of four companies of the 95th and three of Elder’s Caçadores. The 43rd and the other half-battalion of the Portuguese came on in line, a few hundred yards behind the riflemen. They were still smothered in the fog, and could discover nothing more than that they were pursuing the French pickets up a gentle slope, mostly unenclosed waste ground, but cut up by a few fields with low stone walls. Pushing forward briskly, they presently came upon a French regiment, which was already under arms, and preparing to show a front against them. What had happened in the mist was that the Light Division, instead of getting round the flank of Reynier’s position, had struck directly against it. The 2nd Corps had been established on the long hill behind Sabugal and above the Coa, ready to resist a frontal attack, with Merle’s division on the left and Heudelet’s on the right, above the town. Beckwith had struck upon the 4th Léger, the left regiment of the left-hand division of the corps. Merle, warned by the fire of the pickets, was making a new front, _en potence_ to the general line of the French army, and had just got the four battalions of the extreme flank regiment drawn out. They were,