Drury Lowe’s Cavalry Brigade, consisting of the 7th Dragoon Guards and three squadrons of Household Cavalry (contributed by the 1st and 2nd Life Guards, and “Blues,” or Horse Guards, respectively) were stationed some miles to the rear at Mehsameh, and Graham heliographed to these splendid troopers to come and help him on his right flank in the impending battle. Come they also did with right good will, for they were all burning for a fight, but only to hear that the Egyptians, after using their guns for some time, had apparently retired again behind their sand-hills; so back they went to Mehsameh and off-saddled again. The heat was terrific, and bucketfuls of water from the canal had to be poured on the heads of the English artillerists to enable them to stick to their guns. Sunstrokes were numerous, but our men bore all their sufferings with a fortitude truly heroic. The scorching heat was probably the reason why the Egyptians had drawn off from their first attack on Kassassin, but towards the cool of the evening they again began to push forward from their sand-hills and threaten the British position. The left of this position was well protected, but the right less so; and, indeed, General Graham expressly made such a disposition of his force on the latter flank as might tempt the enemy down from his sand-hills so as to essay a turning movement, when they would be caught in the trap which he was preparing for them. To this end, about 5.20 p.m., he despatched his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Pirie, 4th Dragoon Guards, with a message to Drury Lowe, in the rear, at Mehsameh, or wherever he should be found, “to take the cavalry round by our right, under cover of the hill, and attack the left flank of the enemy’s skirmishers.” But when Lieutenant Pirie did at last reach Lowe, after a long and fatiguing ride through the arid desert sand--in the course of which his horse fell under him from sheer exhaustion and he had to borrow another mount from a gunteam--he delivered his message in this altered form, that “General Graham _was only just able to hold his own_, and wished General Drury Lowe to attack the left of the enemy’s infantry skirmishers.” The famous cavalry charge at Balaclava had been due to a similar mistake in the delivery of a verbal order, though at Kassassin, as it turned out, the repetition of this mistake did not result in disaster, but in victory. So far was Graham from not being able to hold his own that, about two hours after despatching Lieutenant Pirie for the cavalry, he had ordered a counter-attack and a general advance of his line, which had meanwhile been reinforced by a fresh battery, for his other guns had been obliged to retire out of action, owing to want of ammunition, it having been found impossible to drag the battery carts through the deep and yielding sand.