Jack knew the stern, rugged features of Sir Colin Campbell, and riding up to him gave both the message and the letter. ‘Ay, ay, I know as well as any one can tell me the necessity to advance,’ said the gallant Scotsman. ‘If the Light Division had kept their formation and not run away with themselves we should have been close behind them now. But how is it you bring me this message? Are the staff all down?’ Jack explained the circumstances, and Sir Colin said, ‘Remain where you are till you have seen us cross the river, then return and report to Lord Raglan.’ Sir Colin had carefully selected the spot where his regiments were to cross, and he led them himself. First came the 42nd, the gallant Black Watch, whose last war-service had been at Waterloo, when, clinging to the stirrups of their countrymen, the Scots Greys, they had charged upon the French, shouting, ‘Scotland for ever!’ Then the 93rd Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, who had covered themselves with glory in the Peninsula; and, lastly, the 79th, the stern fighting Cameronians, whose band had played the Lancers into Portsmouth. The Guards, those giants from the Metropolis, led by the Duke of Cambridge, marching with a contemptuous indifference to the bullets flying round them, were already in the river when the Highlanders, with their flowing tartans and nodding Highland bonnets, their faces aglow with the fierce joy of the warrior about to grapple with his foe, dashed into the river. Moving more quickly and in perfect order, the Highlanders, with much less loss than the other regiments, gained the vineyard on the opposite bank, where, as they marched, they snatched handfuls of grapes to quench their burning thirst. Having seen the division cross, Jack galloped off to find Lord Raglan and report. He put Dainty at the river at the spot where the staff-officer had crossed, and, penetrating into the Russian lines, he rode on, getting higher and higher, till presently, in front of him, he saw on a knoll commanding a view of the Russian army Lord Raglan and the headquarter staff. Just behind them were Cornet Leland and Pearson. Jack galloped up and delivered his message. The one-armed veteran looked at the trumpeter. ‘I see them now advancing,’ he said, ‘and gallantly are they doing it.’ He again put his glasses to his eyes and looked over the field on which the battle raged. Jack rejoined Cornet Leland and looked round him. He could see the massive column of Russians opposing the English advance, and behind them dense bodies of gray-coated reserves. A French aide-de-camp came galloping up to Lord Raglan. ‘My lord, my lord!’ he cried in great agitation; ‘we are terribly outnumbered, we are surrounded, we are lost!’ Lord Raglan smiled in his courteous way. ‘I will spare you a battalion,’ he said; and gave the necessary order. He then gazed long at the Russian flank, suddenly exclaiming, ‘Now, if we had a couple of guns here!’