The combat of Biar, which filled the midday hours of April 12th, was one of the most creditable rearguard actions fought during the whole Peninsular War. Colonel Adam had only one British and two Italian battalions, with two German Legion rifle companies, four mountain guns, and one squadron of the ‘Foreign Hussars’--about 2,200 men in all. He had prepared a series of positions on which he intended to fall back in succession, as each was forced. At the commencement of the action he occupied Biar village with the Calabrese Free Corps, flanked by the light companies of the 2/27th and 3rd K.G.L. The rest of the brigade was above, on the hills flanking the pass, with the guns on the high road. The leading French battalion assaulted the barricaded village, and was repulsed with heavy loss. Then, as was expected, the enemy turned Biar on both flanks: its garrison retired unharmed, but the turning columns came under the accurate fire of the troops on the slopes above, and the attack was again checked. Suchet, angered at the waste of time, then threw in no less than nine battalions[416] intending to sweep away all opposition, and turning Adam’s left flank with swarms of voltigeurs. The Light Brigade had, of course, to retire; but Adam conducted his retreat with great deliberation and in perfect order, fending off the turning attack with his German and British light companies, and making the column on the high road pay very dearly for each furlong gained. His four mountain guns, on the crest of the pass, were worked with good effect to the last moment--two which had each lost a wheel were abandoned on the ground. When the crest had been passed, Suchet sent a squadron of cuirassiers to charge down the road on the retreating infantry. Foreseeing this, when the cavalry had been noted on the ascent, Adam had hidden three companies of the 2/27th in rocks where the road made a sharp angle: the cuirassiers, as they trotted past, received a flank volley at ten paces distance, which knocked over many, and sent the rest reeling back in disorder on to their own infantry. After this the pursuit slackened; ‘the enemy seemed glad to be rid of us,’ and after five hours’ fighting the Light Brigade marched back in perfect order to the position beside Castalla which had been assigned to it[417]. Its final retirement was covered by three battalions which Murray had sent out to meet it, at the exit from the pass[418].