ning up and descended with equal fury, but the ditch opposite
the Trinidad was filled with water; the head of the division leaped
into it, and, as Napier puts it, "about 100 of the fusiliers, the men
of Albuera, perished there." The breaches were impassable. Across the
top of the great slope of broken wall glittered a fringe of
sword-blades, sharp-pointed, keen-edged on both sides, fixed in
ponderous beams chained together and set deep in the ruins. For ten
feet in front the ascent was covered with loose planks, studded with
sharp iron points. Behind the glittering edge of sword-blades stood
the solid ranks of the French, each man supplied with three muskets,
and their fire scourged the British ranks like a tempest.

Hundreds had fallen, hundreds were still falling; but the British clung
doggedly to the lower slopes, and every few minutes an officer would
leap forward with a shout, a swarm of men would instantly follow him,
and, like leaves blown by a whirlwind, they swept up the ascent. But
under the incessant fire of the French the assailants melted away. One
private reached the sword-blades, and actually thrust his head beneath
them till his brains were beaten out, so desperate was his resolve to
get into Badajos. The breach, as Napier describes it, "yawning and
glittering with steel, resembled the mouth of a huge dragon belching
forth smoke and flame." But for two hours, and until 2000 men had
fallen, the stubborn British persisted in their attacks. Currie, of
the 52nd, a cool and most daring soldier, found a narrow ramp beyond
the Santa Maria breach only half-ruined; he forced his way back through
the tumult and carnage to where Wellington stood watching the scene,
obtained an unbroken battalion from the reserve, and led it towards the
broken ramp. But his men were caught in the whirling madness of the
ditch and swallowed up in the tumult. Nicholas, of the engineers, and
Shaw, of the 43rd, with some fifty soldiers, actually climbed into the
Santa Maria bastion, and from thence tried to force their way into the
breach. Every man was shot down except Shaw, who stood alone on the
bastion. "With inexpressible coolness he looked at his watch, said it
was too late to carry the breaches," and then leaped down! The British
could not penetrate the breach; but they would not retreat. They could
only die where they stood. The buglers of the reserve were sent to the
crest of the glacis to sound the retreat; the