“What is it?” asked the young sergeant-major eagerly.  “A fight?”

“More than that—­a general action.  In another hour or two we shall be engaged hotly along the whole line.  Some of us will lose the number of our mess before the day is done.”

The Royal Picts formed part of the second division, under the command of Sir de Lacy Evans, a fine old soldier, who had seen service for half a century.  This division was on the right of the English army.  On the left of Sir de Lacy Evans was the Light Division, beyond that the Highlanders and Guards.  The Third Division was in reserve behind the Second, the Fourth far in the rear, still near the sea-shore.

The march had hitherto been in columns, a disposition that lent itself readily to deployment into line—­the traditional formation, peculiar to the British arms, and the inevitable prelude to an attack.

The order now given to form line was, therefore, promptly recognised as the signal for the approaching struggle.  It was rendered the more necessary by the galling fire opened upon our troops by the enemy’s batteries, which crowned every point of vantage on the hills in front.

Grandly, and with admirable precision, the three leading divisions of the British army formed themselves into the historic “Thin Red Line,” renowned in the annals of European warfare, from Blenheim to Waterloo.

This beautiful line, so slender, yet so imposing in its simple, unsupported strength, was more than two miles long, and faced the right half of the Russian position.  As the divisions stood, the Guards and Highlanders confronted the Kourgane Hill, with its greater and lesser redoubts, armed with heavy guns and held by dense columns of the enemy.  Next them was the Light Division, facing the vineyards and hamlets to the left of the great high road; before them were other earth-works, manned by a no less formidable garrison and artillery.  The Second Division lay across the high road, opposite the village of Bourliouk, high above which was an eighteen-gun battery and great masses of Russian troops.

General Wilders’s brigade was on the extreme right of the British front; its right regiment was the Royal Picts, the very centre this of the battle-field, midway between the sea and the far left; and here the allied generals had their last meeting before the combat commenced.

A single figure, sitting straight and soldier-like in his saddle, with white hair blanched in the service of his country—­a service fraught with the perils and penalties of war, as the empty sleeve bore witness—­this single figure rode a little in advance of the British staff.  It was Fitzroy Somerset, now Lord Raglan, the close comrade and trusted friend of the Iron Duke, by whose side he had ridden in every action in Spain.  His face was passive and serene.  Contentment shone in every feature.  His martial spirit was stirred by the sights and sounds of battle, once so familiar to him, but now for forty years unheard.  But the calm demeanour, the quiet voice, the steady, unflinching gaze, all indicating a noble unconsciousness of danger, were those of the chance rider in Rotten Row, not of a great commander carrying his own life and that of thousands in his hand.