“The French skirmishers, swarming on the right bank, opened a biting fire, which was returned as bitterly; the artillery on both sides played across the ravine, the sounds were repeated by numberless echoes, and the smoke, rising slowly, resolved itself into an immense arch, spanning the whole chasm, and sparkling with the whirling fuzees of the flying shells. The enemy gathered fast and thickly; his columns were discovered forming behind the high rocks, and a dragoon was seen to try the depth of the stream above, but two shots from the 52nd killed horse and man, and the carcases, floating between the hostile bands, showed that the river was impassable. The monotonous tones of a French drum were then heard, and in another instant, the head of a noble column was at the long narrow bridge. A drummer and an officer, in a splendid uniform, leaped forward together, and the whole rushed on with loud cries. The depth of the ravine at first deceived the soldiers’ aim, and two-thirds of the passage was won ere an English shot had brought down an enemy; yet a few paces onwards the line of death was traced, and the whole of the leading French section fell as one man! Still the gallant column pressed forward, but no foot could pass that terrible line; the killed and wounded rolled together until the heap rose nearly even with the parapet, and the living mass behind melted away rather than give back. “The shouts of the British now rose loudly, but they were confidently answered, and, in half an hour, a second column, more numerous than the first, again crowded the bridge. This time, however, the range was better judged, and ere half the distance was won, the multitude was again torn, shattered, dispersed and slain; ten or twelve men only succeeded in crossing, and took shelter under the rocks at the brink of the river.”[106] Night came--and the light division, after its heroic resistance against an overwhelming force, retreated, under cover of the darkness, to a position three leagues from Averca. The night march was made in perfect order; the artillery brought safely off; the field equipage removed; and though Massena, in his despatches, spoke of colours and cannon having been taken, not a trophy nor a gun was abandoned by Craufurd, and a loss fully as severe as what he suffered, was inflicted on the enemy in return. Colonel Hall, who had arrived but the preceding day from England to join the 43rd, fell in this affair--and about three hundred and fifty were returned as killed, wounded, and missing.