Cameron's force was encamped in the centre of a lonely gorge, and his outposts were far down the hillside in advance; and these, on Sunday the 25th, descried the division of General Drouet, 15,000 strong, advancing on the road that led from Urdax. Coming on with great spirit, they drove in the three light companies of the brigade (which Cameron had dispatched as skirmishers in front), and gained the high rock of Maya before the 2nd brigade of infantry could come to his support. His little band were thus left to defend that steep and narrow pass against _five_ times their number. On this fatal morning the strength of the Gordon Highlanders was only fifty-five staff, and 762 rank and file.
To deceive the foe as to his real strength, Cameron skilfully divided his Highlanders into two wings, in open columns of companies, thus giving the slender battalion the aspect of _two_ regiments; but this _ruse_ was useless, as the traitor-muleteers, who, for the few weeks preceding, had been passing between the mountains and French outposts, had made Soult fully aware of the actual force left to defend the Pyrenees at every point. The moment the action commenced, Fassifern detached the 50th to the right, where, after a desperate conflict, it was driven back and forced to leave the ridge.
Under Major M'Pherson, Cameron then sent forward first the right wing, and then the left, of his brave Highlanders. Then ensued one of the most appalling scenes of carnage recorded in the annals of that protracted war. The Highlanders stood like a rampart, in which, however, frightful gaps were made by the bullets of the French, who came on, in one vast mob, shouting and brandishing their eagles. Separating the 1st and 2nd brigades, they descended upon the pass of Maya from one flank, while a fresh division poured upon its front from the Urdax road. Cameron, who had repeatedly ordered a _charge_, which was unheard amid the roar of the musketry, then made the whole fall back gradually upon the rock of Maya; a movement which was slowly and desperately covered by the left wings of the 71st Highland Light Infantry and of the Gordon Highlanders, which, by relieving each other, drenched in blood every inch of the ground; and there these gallant men defended the rock for ten successive hours, until--just when ammunition was falling short--the brigade of General Barnes arrived to their succour, and Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir William Stuart, a fine old soldier whom all the troops loved well, ordered Cameron's brigade _not_ to charge; but, exasperated by the slaughter they had endured, they rushed upon the French with the bayonet, and the Gordon Highlanders, "_for the first time disregarded orders, and not only charged, but led the charge_," and recovered every foot of ground as far as the pass from which they had been driven. In this headlong advance the pipers played the "Haughs of Cromdale," and the line was led by Captain Seton of Pitmedden, bonnet and claymore in hand. But the slaughter in their ranks was terrible, for 19 officers and 324 rank and file were killed, wounded, and missing. Among the wounded were--Cameron, who was shot through the thigh, and forced to leave the field; Major Mitchel, who succeeded him; Captains Holmes, and Bevan, who died when his arm was taken out of the socket, and Ronald M'Donald of Coul; Lieutenants Winchester, who commanded the light company; Donald M'Donald, Chisholm, Durie, M'Pherson, and Fife, who, after having one ball turned by a button, and another by his watch, was struck down at last; Gordon, Kerr Ross, and John Grant, who was shot through the side. Among the ensigns were Thomas and George Mitchell, Ewen Kennedy (one of Cameron's Lochaber men), who bled to death on the field, and Alaster M'Donald of Dalchosnie, a youth of eighteen, who afterwards expired of a wound in the head, and was buried by four of his brother officers in a hole outside the town-gate of Vittoria, where Holmes said a short prayer over his grave.