The enemy could see on the sky-line the British reinforcements as they came up from Halesowen by the road close to their battery on the bare spot near the edge of their right flank, and it was decided at four o'clock to deliver a counter flank attack on the left edge of the British position, simultaneously with a renewed strenuous assault by the tirailleurs from below. Soon this desperate manoeuvre was commenced, and although the marching ground was good, the British guns swept them with their terrible fire, and hundreds of the Tsar's soldiers dyed the meadows with their blood. It was a fierce, mad dash. The British attacked vigorously on every side, fought bravely, straining every nerve to repulse their foe. The battle had been the most fiercely contested of any during the struggle, and in this desperate assault on King's Norton the Russians had suffered appalling losses. The valleys and slopes were strewn with dead and dying, and a bullet had struck the British commander, mortally wounding him. As he was borne away to the ambulance waggon, the last words on that noble soldier's lips were a fervent wish for good fortune to the arms of the Queen he had served so well. But the British were, alas! outnumbered, and at last retreating in disorder, were followed over the hills to Halesowen and utterly routed, while the main body of the enemy marching up the Bristol and Pershore Roads, extended their left across to Harborne and Edgbaston. Meanwhile, however, the guns placed on the edge of the city along the Hagley Road near the Fountain, and in Beech Lane close to the Talbot Inn, as well as the Volunteer batteries near St. Augustine's Church and Westfield Road, opened fire upon the advancing legions. The two lower roads taken by the enemy were well commanded by the British guns, and the Volunteers, with the Canadians and Irish, again rendered most valuable assistance, everywhere displaying cool and conspicuous courage. The walls of the new villas along the Hagley Road, Portland Road, and Beech Lane had been placed in a state of hasty defence, and rifles bristled everywhere, but as the sun sank behind the long range of purple hills the fight was in the balance. The British, as they stood, could almost keep back the foe, but, alas! not quite. There was soon a concentric rush for the hill, and as the cannons thundered and rifles rattled, hundreds of the grey-coats fell back and rolled down the steep slope dead and dying, but the others pushed on in face of the frowning defences, used their bayonets with desperate energy, and a few minutes later loud shouts in Russian told that the ridge had been cleared and the position won. The battle had been long and terrible; the carnage awful!