Although barely recovered from the effects of their recent fighting at Quatre Bras, Picton's 3000 gallant men responded to the call, and advanced in two thin lines to meet the 12,000 Frenchmen, already flushed with victory. Nearer the columns approached, and the British lines halted to receive them. Then, when within a few yards, Ney ordered his columns to deploy into line, Picton, taking advantage of the momentary check, delivered a withering volley and then charged in with the bayonet. The head of the leading French column was hurled back in confusion, and the 3000 British soldiers flung themselves upon the disorganised 12,000 Frenchmen, before they could recover from their first surprise. Picton was shot dead as he led the charge, but his gallant action had saved the situation, and it remained for the cavalry to complete Ney's discomfiture in this part of the field, charging the broken infantry, overthrowing the cavalry, and putting the seventy-four guns out of action for the remainder of the day. Thus ended the second phase of the great battle, and so far Napoleon had made no headway. Yet he was by no means disheartened, and, ordering all his remaining guns into action, he pounded the British line from a distance, while he prepared for his next assault. At 4 P.M. began another phase of the fight, when Wellington's right wing was assailed by squadron after squadron of Cuirassiers, fresh bodies of infantry moving at the same time against La Haie Sainte and Hougoumont. The charges of the French cavalry were magnificent, but the squares in which Wellington had rapidly formed his troops resisted all the enemy's efforts to break them. The British guns also stood firm, firing grape at the charging horsemen, until they arrived within forty yards, when, discharging a salvo, the gunners quitted their guns for the time being and fell back to the shelter of the infantry squares. Four times did the French cavalry charge home, using some 12,000 men for the purpose; yet were they able to do no more than to ride round and between the squares, which, being arranged chequerwise, met them with bristling bayonets and a rattling musketry fire in all directions, throwing them into disorder and obliging the greater number to draw off, with heavy losses in killed, wounded, and prisoners.