Nevertheless, with a dogged persistency unusual to our Gallic neighbours, they continued to fight with unquelled vigour. The 2nd Oxfordshire Light Infantry and the 1st and 2nd Wiltshire, holding very important ground over against Puttenham, bore their part with magnificent courage, but were at length cut up in a most horrible manner; while the 1st Bedfordshire, who, with a body of Regulars valiantly held the road running over the hills from Gomshall to Merrow, fought splendidly; but they too were, alas! subsequently annihilated. Over hill and dale, stretching away to the Sussex border, the rattle and din of war sounded incessantly, and as hour after hour passed, hundreds of Britons and Frenchmen dyed the brown, sun-baked grass with their blood. The struggle was frightful. Volunteer battalions who had manoeuvred over that ground at many an Eastertide had little dreamed that they would have one day to raise their rifles in earnest for the defence of their home and Queen. Yet the practice they had had now served them well, for in one instance the 1st Berkshire succeeded by a very smart manoeuvre in totally sweeping away several troops of Cuirassiers, while a quarter of an hour later half an infantry battalion of Regulars attacked a large force of Zouaves on the Compton Road, and fought them successfully almost hand to hand. Through the long, toilsome day the battle continued with unabated fury, and as the sun went down there was no cessation of hostilities. A force of our Regulars, extending from Farnham over Hind Head Common, fell suddenly upon a large body of French infantry, and, outflanking them, managed--after a most frightful encounter, in which they lost nearly half their men--to totally annihilate them. In connection with this incident, a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards made a magnificent charge up a steep hill literally to the muzzles of the guns of a French battery, and by their magnificent pluck captured it. Still, notwithstanding the bravery of our defenders, and their fierce determination to sweep away their foe, it seemed when the sun finally disappeared that the fortunes of war were once more against us, for the French had now received huge reinforcements, and Dorking and Leatherhead having already passed into their hands two days previously, they were enabled to make their final assault a most savage and terrific one.