From his master in the art of war, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, Moore had learned that the presence of a commander is always most useful near that point at which the greatest struggle is likely to occur; thus he remained near Lord Bentinck's brigade, and close to the 42nd, on the extreme right, and there Quentin and his staff accompanied him. The French left carried the village of Elvina, and dividing into two great masses, one poured on against Baird's front, and the other assailed his right under cover of their gun battery, while their right assailed Hope at the pretty hamlet of Palavia Abaxo. And now the roar and carnage of the battle became general all over the field; men were falling fast on every side, "and human lives were lavished everywhere;" Baird's left arm was shattered by a grape-shot, and he was taken from the front to have it amputated; Middleton was struck about the same time, in the left side. Lifting his cocked-hat, and bowing almost to his holsters, while a cloud of hair-powder flew about his head, this fine old soldier said, faintly, to the Master of Rohallion-- "I am wounded, colonel, and have the honour to request you will order another officer to take command of the left." He then ambled away on his old nag towards Corunna. "Close in, men--fill up the gaps," was the incessant cry of the officers and sergeants; "close up the rear ranks--close up!" and cheerily they did so, those brave hearts and true. As it was, the sparks of the flints, the burning of priming (many of the muskets being bushed with brass), caused many of the front rank men to have their cheeks bleeding by splinters or scorched by powder; but these were constant occurrences before the days of percussion locks and caps. The fire of the enemy was terrible, and all who were not wounded had narrow escapes. Quentin had no less than three during the first hour; a ball struck one of his holster pipes, another tore through his havresack, smashing his ration biscuits, and a third perforated his shako, and had he been an inch taller, he had been a dead man. The first tightening of the heart relaxed--the first wild thrill of anxiety over, and Quentin felt as cool as the oldest veteran there. The light field guns as they retired from Elvina came tearing past with blood and human hair upon their wheels and on the hoofs of their galloping horses, showing the carnage through which they had passed; but they were again unlimbered and brought into action to check the dragoons of Lorge, who menaced the right with pistol and sabre. Sir John, who, with eagle eye, had been watching the movements of the enemy through the openings in the white smoke which rolled along the slopes and filled all the hollows, observed that no more infantry were coming on than those which outflanked the right of Baird's division, now commanded by his successor.