Shouting orders here is Lieutenant Samual Pagan of No.3 Company. When not forming square to see off the French cavalry attack, the regiment were ordered to lie down to avoid casualties from the French artillery barrage.
Lieutenat Frederick Hope Pattison recalls.
“ When in this prostrate position
it so happened that Lieutenant Pagan,
Captain Trevor and Lieutenant Hart were
lying on the ground close to one another in the centre of the square. I was
standing up, much interested in what was going on to our left, when a missile,
supposed to be the fracture of a shell, hit Hart so severely on the shoulder as
to cause instant death, and, passing over Trevor, scooped out one of Pagan’s
ears. He got up staggering and bleeding
profusely when I, with other assistance, placed him on a bearer to carry him to
the rear. The men thus employed had
hardly left the centre of the square when a cannon-ball hit one of them and
carried off his leg. Another man took
his place.”
The unfortunate Pagan later gave up the military life and became a doctor in Edinburgh.
No.2 Company had lost one man killed at Quatre Bras, and a further five men were killed at Waterloo. A further four died of wounds. The 33rd (West Riding) Foot was unusual in that it contained large numbers of men who actually came from that county. For example, the men killed in action at Waterloo were: Privates Michael Slim (Hathersage, Derbyshire), Elijah Carter (Halifax, Yorks), John Ramsden (Halifax, Yorks), Ralph Marsh (Tilsley, Lancs), William Dryden (Yorks)
