While it was still black night on the 21st, the French began the action by demonstrating against our left, and though the false attack was not pressed home, it was successful in so far that troops, urgently required on other parts of the field, were diverted to the help of Cradock’s brigade. In the centre the enemy made no headway against the steady volleys of the regiments facing him; the danger was in his onslaught on our right, where for a long time there raged a series of fierce and confused fights. The piquets were driven in, and the supports surprised by columns suddenly looming out of the murky darkness; reinforcements on either side hurried up, guided by the flash of the muskets and the shouts of the combatants--prisoners and Colours were taken and recaptured, posts lost and regained. At one moment the French slipped unperceived between two corps, which in the very nick of time discovered and routed them with the bayonet: a little later a regiment, while hotly engaged in front, was surrounded by a body of the enemy whose presence was revealed by the sound of a French word of command. The rear rank turned about, and fighting back to back, drove off their foes. Episodes such as these marked the progress of the action until the morning light showed Menou that all his efforts had been unavailing, and that the British line, shattered but unconquered, still held its ground. Mad with rage at his want of success the French General, against the advice of his subordinates, hurled his cavalry, 1200 strong, into the fray. They crashed through a regiment whose formation they broke, though not its spirit, and swept like a torrent over the battlefield until they reached the camp, where the horses stumbled over the tent-ropes and fell into the burrows, scratched in the sand as sleeping places by a corps whose tents had not arrived. The confusion thus caused was increased by the cross-fire of the infantry who had been left in charge of the baggage, and the French cavalry wheeled about and retired at full speed, leaving the ground behind them covered with their dead. After several more desperate efforts, in which assailants and assailed displayed equal courage, Menou realised that he was defeated, and fell back slowly and in good order. His solid columns offered a splendid target to our artillerymen; but the guns were silent, to the intense surprise of the French who expected to be pursued by a hail of projectiles, and to the mortification of the British infantry, who looked to the gunners to avenge their losses. But the gunners could not fire; they were as short of ammunition as the foot soldiers themselves, many of whom had been forced to rely exclusively on their bayonets in the later phases of the battle. It was not that ammunition was lacking in the camp, but owing to a staff blunder there was no means of getting it up to the fighting line. Had our gunners been able to do their duty the French loss would have been enormous, but they escaped with 2000 casualties.[112] On our side the gallant Abercromby was mortally wounded; and of the 11,500 men engaged, 10 officers and 233 other ranks were killed; 60 officers and 1133 other ranks wounded; 3 officers and 29 men missing. The Royal Irish, who were on the left flank of Cradock’s brigade, and therefore far away from the scene of the serious fighting, were almost untouched, only two private soldiers being wounded.