clock,
Wellington, who had been over at Ligny discussing the position with
Blucher, rode up and saw how critical the moment was.

In a few minutes the first French division might be up to the cross-roads
at Q.

Bossu Wood, with the four battalions holding it, had not yet been attacked
by the French, because their second division of Reille's Second Corps
(under Napoleon's brother Jerome), had not yet come up; Erlon's First
Corps was still far off, down the road. The men in the Bossu Wood came out
to try and stop the French advance. They were thrown back by French
cavalry, and even as this was proceeding Jerome's division arrived,
attacked the south of Bossu Wood, and brought up the whole of Ney's forces
to some 19,000 or 20,000 men.

The French advance, so continued, would now undoubtedly have succeeded
against the 8000 Dutch at this moment of three o'clock (and Wellington's
judgment that the situation was critical at that same moment was only too
sound) had there not arrived precisely at that moment the first of his
reinforcements.

A brigade of Dutch cavalry came up from the west along the Nivelles road,
and three brigades of infantry appeared marching hurriedly in from the
north, along the Brussels road; two of these brigades were British, under
the command of Kemp and of Pack, and they formed Picton's division. The
third were a brigade of Hanoverians, under Best. The British and the
Hanoverians formed along the Namur road at M N, protected by its
embankment, kneeling in the high wheat, and ready to fire when the enemy's
attacking line should come within close range of their muskets.

The newly arrived Dutch cavalry, on the other side of the road, charged
the advancing French, but were charged themselves in turn by French
cavalry, overthrown, and in their stampede carried Wellington and his
staff in a surge past the cross-roads; but the French cavalry, in its
turn, was compelled to retire by the infantry fire it met when it had
ridden too far. Immediately afterwards the French infantry as they reached
the Namur road came unexpectedly upon the just-arrived British and
Hanoverians, and were driven back in disorder by heavy volleying at close
range from the embankment and the deep cover beyond.

The cavalry charge and countercharge (Jerome beginning to clear the south
of the Bossu Wood), the check received by the French on the right from
Picton's brigade and the Hanoverians occupied nearly an hour. It was not
far