While the French generals were laboriously forming their army behind the Norken, Cadogan was throwing pontoon bridges over the Scheldt, and anxiously scanning the horizon for the clouds of dust which would herald the march of the main body of the Allies. But the day was stifling, the roads narrow and bad; it was not until two o’clock in the afternoon that the heads of the columns began to reach the river, and thus set Cadogan free to secure for his chief a good foothold on the left bank. The first thing to be done was to drive the French out of Eyne; and a body of Hanoverian cavalry and three brigades of infantry from the advance-guard were ordered to attack the village. Sabine’s brigade of British was in front, and as it was led by the Royal Irish, the XVIIIth was the first regiment under fire at the battle of Oudenarde. Though the garrison of Eyne were conscious that they had been stranded in an impossible position, so far in advance of their main line that they could not hope to be reinforced, they fought well at first; but when they realised that they were heavily outnumbered they lost heart: three battalions surrendered: the others were hustled out of the village at the point of the bayonet, and then fell into the hands of the Hanoverians, who after cutting them to pieces charged the detachment of French cavalry posted near Eyne and chased it into the marshes of the Norken.[49] Cadogan followed up his success by pushing two Prussian regiments towards Groenewald, thus to some extent protecting the right flank of the main body as it crossed the Scheldt. The French troops who had been powerless to help their comrades at Eyne became clamorous to avenge them, and the Duke of Burgundy, seeing how slowly the Allies defiled over the bridges, determined to take the offensive, and ordered his right and centre to advance. About five o’clock a formidable mass of infantry threatened Groenewald, where the Prussians would have fared badly had they not been reinforced at once by twelve battalions of the advance-guard, who, as they came into action, prolonged the line to the left--_i.e._, southwards, towards the hamlet of Schaerken. But as the French continued to gain ground on this part of the field twenty battalions from the main body were flung into the fray, and by continuing to extend to the left as they joined the fighting line, repulsed a dangerous attempt by the enemy to turn the left of the Allies at this point.