Our first care was of course the horses, and these we had ample means of providing for, since, in addition to what corn we had left, one of our men had picked up and brought forward on an ammunition-waggon a large sack full, which he found in the road near Genappe. Thus they, at least, had plenty to eat, and having been so well drenched all day, were not much in need of water. For ourselves we had nothing!--absolutely nothing! and looked forward to rest alone to restore our exhausted strength. Rather a bore going supperless to bed after such a day, yet was there no help for it. But our poor animals were not all of them destined to repose, and much as they had undergone during the last six-and-thirty hours, some of them were yet obliged to pass the night on the road, and in harness. Completing our limbers with ammunition from two of the ammunition-waggons, a non-commissioned officer was despatched with these, as soon as the horses had been fed, to Langeveldt near Brussels, where Sir Augustus Frazer had told me in the morning we should find a depôt from whence to supply what had been expended during the day. These cared for, came the care of ourselves. Our gunners, &c., soon stowed themselves away beneath the carriages, using the painted covers as additional shelter against the rain, which now set in again as heavy as ever. We set up a small tent, into which (after vain attempts at procuring food or lodgings in the farm or its outbuildings, all of which were crammed to suffocation with officers and soldiers of all arms and nations) we crept, and rolling ourselves in our wet blankets, huddled close together, in hope, wet as we were, and wet as the ground was, of keeping each other warm. I know not how my bed-fellows got on, as we all lay for a long while perfectly still and silent--the old Peninsular hands disdaining to complain before their Johnny Newcome comrades, and these fearing to do so lest they should provoke some such remarks, as “Lord have mercy on your poor tender carcass! what would such as you have done in the Pyrenees?” or “Oho, my boy! this is but child’s play to what _we_ saw in Spain.” So all who did not sleep (I believe the majority) pretended to do so, and bore their suffering with admirable heroism. For my part, I once or twice, from sheer fatigue, got into something like a doze; yet it would not do. There was no possibility of sleeping, for besides being already so wet, the tent proved no shelter, the water pouring through the canvas in streams; so up I got, and, to my infinite joy, found that some of the men had managed to make a couple of fires, round which they were sitting smoking their short pipes in something like comfort. The hint was a good one, and at that moment my second captain joining me, we borrowed from them a few sticks, and choosing the best spot under the hedge, proceeded to make a fire for ourselves. In a short time we succeeded in raising a cheerful blaze, which materially bettered our situation.