At nightfall the ground won by the Riflemen was given over to Sir Charles Alten’s division, and the Battalion retired to the rear of the farm of Gemioncourt; where, having formed open column of companies and piled arms, the men lay down in their ranks, the officers on the inner flanks of their companies; ready, all of them, to take their arms and assume order of battle on any alarm. Before the Battalion left the ground on which it had fought, Sir Andrew Barnard called attention to a Rifleman lying in their front, with both his legs shattered, adding, ‘Gentlemen, if one of you would remain here with two or three men, and bring that poor fellow off, it would be a glorious act indeed.’ George Simmons at once volunteered. After the Battalion had moved off, he set up two sticks in the direction of the wounded man and laid another at top. When it was getting dark he sent a man forward in this alignment, and marching upon him, and past him, soon reached the wounded man. He told him not to make a sound, hoisted him on the back of one of the men who remained with him, and, the poor fellow suppressing a groan or a sound, he took him away. Luckily while he was thus engaged the sentries of the French picquet were being visited, so that their attention was occupied. On nearing our lines he and his suffering burthen were challenged by the Germans of Alten’s division, and it was not till an officer and twenty men had advanced and examined him, that he was suffered to pass, and to deposit the wounded man in a house at Quatre Bras. After which he rejoined his Battalion. Before daylight a sharp fire took place between the picquets, owing to a patrol of cavalry having by some mistake got between the advanced sentries. At dawn on the 17th a company of the Battalion was sent forward to occupy the farm-yard of Gemioncourt at Quatre Bras, and they detached a picquet of two officers and twenty men to the front. These were placed, some in a ditch and some behind a wall, with orders not to fire; and the French, finding their fire not returned, by degrees ceased firing. The men now cooked; those in rear cooking for those in front. The retreat of the Prussians having rendered a similar movement on our part necessary, the troops at Quatre Bras began a retrograde movement on the morning of the 17th. The 1st Battalion received orders to cover the retreat, and was the last infantry that fell back. Before the picquet retreated Sergeant Fairfoot, a brave Peninsular man, who had been wounded in the breach at Badajos, was struck by a musket ball, which fractured his right fore-arm. Yet with amazing bravery, before going to the rear, he took a shot with his rifle (rested on the shoulder of the officer of the picquet), at the French, firing from his left shoulder and with his left arm.