When the action was drawing to a close, and men, horses, and batteries were being withdrawn, Captain Francis Grenfell, of the Ninth Lancers, observed that the One Hundred and Nineteenth Battery, R.F.A., was in difficulties. All the horses of the battery had been killed, most of its personnel had been killed or wounded, and it looked as if the guns would have to be left. Captain Grenfell, though himself wounded, determined to help, and rode out to look for a way of retreat for the guns. Having found it, to show how little a cavalryman need care for death, he rode his horse back, under a tempest of fire, at a walk, and called for volunteers from the Lancers, reminding them that "the Ninth had never failed the gunners." After such an example the response could be nothing but brisk. He returned with his volunteers ("eleven officers and some forty men"), and under a fierce and incessant fire the guns were manhandled into safety. For this fine action Captain Grenfell and the battery commander--Major Alexander--were each awarded the Victoria Cross. It is one of many illustrations furnished by the Retreat of the _camaraderie_ of the various arms. After a short halt and partial entrenchment on the line Dour-Quarouble, to enable the First Corps to break off its demonstrations, the retreat of the Second Corps was resumed; and by the evening of the 24th the whole army had reached the prearranged line Jenlain-Bavai-Maubeuge--the Second Corps to the west of Bavai, and the First Corps to the right. The right was protected by the fortress of Maubeuge, the left by the cavalry, operating outwards, and by the Nineteenth Infantry Brigade, which had been brought up in the nick of time from the lines of communication, and had acted throughout the day in support of the exposed flank of the Second Corps. It had been intended by the British Commander-in-Chief to make a stand on the Maubeuge line, and if the first calculations of the enemy’s strength and intentions had proved correct, it is possible that a great battle might have been fought here, and continued by the French armies along the whole fortress line of northern France. Even as it was, the temptation to linger at Maubeuge must have been strong; it offered such an inviting buttress to our right flank, and filled so comfortably that dangerous gap between our line and the French. The temptation, to which a weaker commander might have succumbed, was resisted. "The French were still retiring," says the despatch, "and I had no support except such as was afforded by the fortress of Maubeuge; and the determined attempts of the enemy to get round my left flank assured me that it was his intention to hem me against that place and surround me. I felt that not a moment must be lost in retiring to another position."