For James Macdonell there had been no more sleep. He had spent the two hours since General Byng’s visit checking and rechecking their defences, trying to think of anything more they could do, and searching for words of encouragement for five hundred weary, miserable men. From the top of the tower there was a cry of ‘cavalry’. He ran through the garden gate to the wall and climbed onto a fire step. Two hundred yards away a squadron of cuirassiers, the rising sun glinting off their breastplates and helmets, had appeared from behind the wood. He watched them come closer until they were just within musket range, where they halted. A cuirassier officer took out a glass and ran his eye over the garden wall and the hedge around the orchard. ‘Hold your fire,’ shouted Macdonell. The chances of a correct shot were slim and there was no point in revealing their firing positions. The cuirassiers soon turned their mounts and cantered back to their lines. Harry Wyndham appeared beside James.
