Meanwhile Ney had formed his attack on the English left, held by Craufurd and the famous light division. Marbot praises the characteristic tactics of the British in such fights. "After having, as we do," he says, "garnished their front with skirmishers, they post their principal forces out of sight, holding them all the time sufficiently near to the key of the position to be able to attack the enemy the instant they reach it; and this attack, made unexpectedly on assailants who have lost heavily, and think the victory already theirs, succeeds almost invariably." "We had," he adds, "a melancholy experience of this art at Busaco." Craufurd, a soldier of fine skill, made exactly such a disposition of his men. Some rocks at the edge of the ravine formed natural embrasures for the English guns under Ross; below them the Rifles were flung out as skirmishers; behind them the German infantry were the only visible troops; but in a fold of the hill, unseen, Craufurd held the 43rd and 52nd regiments drawn up in line. Ney's attack, as might be expected, was sudden and furious. The English, in the grey dawn, looking down the ravine, saw three huge masses start from the French lines and swarm up the slope. To climb an ascent so steep, vexed by skirmishers on either flank, and scourged by the guns which flashed from the summit, was a great and most daring feat--yet the French did it. Busaco, indeed, is memorable as showing the French fighting quality at its highest point. General Simon led Loison's attack right up to the lips of the English guns, and in the dreadful charge its order was never disturbed nor its speed arrested. "Ross's guns," says Napier, "were worked with incredible quickness, yet their range was palpably contracted every round; the enemy's shot came singing up in a sharper key; the English skirmishers, breathless and begrimed with powder, rushed over the edge of the ascent; the artillery drew back"--and over the edge of the hill came the bearskins and the gleaming bayonets of the French! General Simon led the attack so fiercely home that he was the first to leap across the English entrenchments, when an infantry soldier, lingering stubbornly after his comrades had fallen back, shot him point-blank through the face. The unfortunate general, when the fight was over, was found lying in the redoubt amongst the dying and the dead, with scarcely a human feature left. He recovered, was sent as a prisoner to England, and was afterwards exchanged, but his horrible wound made it impossible for him to serve again.