The seventh division and Colville’s brigade of the third division, having forded the river, formed the left of the British, and were immediately engaged with the French right; but then Wellington, seeing the hill in front of Arinez nearly denuded of troops by the withdrawal of Villatte’s division, led Picton and the rest of the third division in close column at a running pace, diagonally, across the front of both armies, towards that central point. This attack was headed by Barnard’s riflemen, and followed by the remainder of Kempt’s brigade and the hussars;[29] and at the same time, when the fourth division had passed the bridge of Nanclares, the heavy cavalry, a splendid body, galloped over also, squadron after squadron into the plain ground between Cole and Hill. Thus caught in the midst of their dispositions for retreat, the French threw out a prodigious number of skirmishers, and fifty pieces of artillery played with astonishing activity. To answer this fire Wellington brought over most of his guns, and both sides were shrouded by a dense cloud of smoke and dust, under cover of which the French retired by degrees to the second range of heights in front of Gomecha, on which their reserve had been posted, yet still holding the village of Arinez on the main road. Picton’s troops, always headed by the riflemen of the light division, then plunged into that village amidst a heavy fire of muskets and artillery, and three guns were captured; but the post was important, fresh French troops came down, and for some time the smoke and dust and clamour, the flashing of the fire-arms, and the shouts and cries of the combatants, mixed with the thundering of the guns, were terrible: finally the British troops issued forth victorious on the other side. During this conflict the seventh division, reinforced by Vandeleur’s brigade of the light division, was heavily raked by a battery at the village of Margarita, until the 52nd regiment with an impetuous charge carried that village, and the 87th won the village of Hermandad, and, so fighting, the whole line advanced. When the village of Arinez was won, the French opposed to Hill, at Subijana de Alava, were turned, and being hard pressed in front, and on their left by the troops of the Puebla mountain, fell back two miles in disorder, striving to regain the line of retreat to Vittoria. It was thought some cavalry launched at the moment would have disorganized the whole French battle, but none moved, and the confused multitude shooting ahead recovered order.