At 1.30 on the morning of the 13th, the order was given for the advance of the 1st and 2nd Divisions simultaneously, and the celebrated march on Tel-el-Kebir began. The Indian Contingent and the Naval Brigade did not move until an hour later, to avoid giving the alarm to the enemy, by the passing of the force through the numerous villages in the cultivated land south of the Canal. The night was dark, and it was very difficult to maintain the desired formation. More than once the advancing lines, guided only by the light of the stars, formed somewhat of a crescent shape, and there was danger of the advancing force mistaking their comrades for parties of the enemy. Several halts had to be made, as well for the purpose of resting the men as for that of correcting the formation. The final halt was made at 3 a.m., and lasted nearly an hour. Daybreak was the time fixed for the arrival at the enemy's lines, and it would have been as undesirable to have reached them too early as too late. There were practically three separate but nearly simultaneous infantry attacks, by the 1st Division under General Willis; by the 2nd Division under General Hamley, and away on the extreme left, south of the Canal, by the Indian Contingent, under General Macpherson. In point of time, General Hamley's was somewhat earlier than the others, and General Macpherson's the last of the three. The action began at early dawn. Willis's leading brigade,[62] commanded by General Graham, was about 900 yards from the intrenchments. Partly owing to the difficulty of keeping a proper alignment during the night march, partly to the fact that the line of march was oblique to the line of the earthworks, and partly to the confusion created by an Egyptian scout who galloped into the lines, Willis was obliged to form again under fire, changing front forward on the left company, before assaulting. Adopting the regular attack formation at 300 yards distance, his men fired a volley, after which they rushed up to 150 yards distance, fired a second volley, and then reached the ditch.[63] Here the fighting line was joined by the supports (the 1st Battalion of the Grenadiers, the Scots and Coldstreams), a last volley delivered, the ditch jumped, and amid the cheers of the soldiers the works cleared at the point of the bayonet. As soon as the brigade reached the parapet, the Egyptians broke and ran, some stopping occasionally to fire back on their pursuers, who chased them until the artillery had got inside the works and had begun shelling the fugitives. This brigade struck the trenches not 100 yards from the point aimed at. It was longer exposed to the Egyptian fire than were the Highlanders, whose attack had begun a few minutes before and had fully aroused the whole line of the defence, which had been sleeping on their arms behind the parapets.