They opened a cannonade upon our line, but principally upon our centre behind the farm of La Haye-Sainte: our guns soon answered them to their cost, and caused great havock amongst the enemy’s columns, as they arrived on the opposite heights between La Belle-Alliance and the orchard of La Haye-Sainte. It was now getting dusk, and orders were given to throw out piquets along the front and flanks of the army. Our left squadron, under captain Verner, was thrown into the valley in front of the left wing; the rest of my regiment bivacked near where Picton fell the next day. The spirit of mutual defiance was such, that in posting the piquets, there were many little cavalry affairs, which, although of no useful result to either side, were conducted with great bravery, and carried to such a pitch, that restraint was absolutely necessary. Captain Heyliger, of the 7th hussars, (part of our piquet,) with his troop, made a spirited charge upon the enemy’s cavalry, and when the Duke sent to check him, his Grace desired to be made acquainted with the name of the officer who had shown so much gallantry. A better or more gallant officer, than captain Heyliger, never drew a sword; but he was truly unfortunate: if there was a ball flying about, he was usually the target. I was three times engaged with the enemy, serving with the captain, and he was wounded on each of those occasions: the first time, foraging at Haspereen; next, at the battle of Orthez; and thirdly, at Waterloo. The ball he received on the last occasion was extracted at Bruges, in 1831. Our bivac was dismal in the extreme; what with the thunder, lightning and rain, it was as bad a night as I ever witnessed, a regular soaker: torrents burst forth from the well charged clouds upon our comfortless bivacs, and the uproar of the elements, during the night preceding Waterloo, seemed as the harbinger of the bloody contest. We cloaked, throwing a part over the saddle, holding by the stirrup leather, to steady us if sleepy: to lie down with water running in streams under us, was not desirable, and to lie amongst the horses not altogether safe. A comrade of mine, Robert Fisher, a tailor by trade, proposed that one of us should go in search of something to sit on. I moved off for that purpose, and obtained two bundles of bean-stalks from a place that I now know as Mont-St.-Jean farm. This put us, I may say, quite in clover. The poor tailor had his thread of life snapped short on the following day. The duke of Wellington established his head-quarters opposite the church at Waterloo, (now the post-house and post-office;) while his Imperial antagonist, Napoleon, pitched his tent near the farm of Caillou, about five miles from Waterloo, on the left of the Genappe road, in the parish of Old-Genappe. The Imperial baggage was also at this farm.