troops in the ditch would
not believe the signal to be genuine, and struck their own buglers who
attempted to repeat it. "Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on
their muskets," says Napier, "they looked up in sullen desperation at
Trinidad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and aiming
their shots by the light of fireballs, which they threw over, asked as
their victims fell, 'Why they did not come into Badajos.'"

All this while, curiously enough, Picton was actually in Badajos, and
held the castle securely, but made no attempt to clear the breach. On
the extreme west of the town, however, at the bastion of San Vincente,
the fifth division made an attack as desperate as that which was
failing at the breaches. When the stormers actually reached the
bastion, the Portuguese battalions, who formed part of the attack,
dismayed by the tremendous fire which broke out on them, flung down
their ladders and fled. The British, however, snatched the ladders up,
forced the barrier, jumped into the ditch, and tried to climb the
walls. These were thirty feet high, and the ladders were too short. A
mine was sprung in the ditch under the soldiers' feet; beams of wood,
stones, broken waggons, and live shells were poured upon their heads
from above. Showers of grape from the flank swept the ditch.

The stubborn soldiers, however, discovered a low spot in the rampart,
placed three ladders against it, and climbed with reckless valour. The
first man was pushed up by his comrades; he, in turn, dragged others
up, and the unconquerable British at length broke through and swept the
bastion. The tumult still stormed and raged at the eastern breaches,
where the men of the light and fourth division were dying sullenly, and
the men of the fifth division marched at speed across the town to take
the great eastern breach in the rear. The streets were empty, but the
silent houses were bright with lamps. The men of the fifth pressed on;
they captured mules carrying ammunition to the breaches, and the
French, startled by the tramp of the fast-approaching column, and
finding themselves taken in the rear, fled. The light and fourth
divisions broke through the gap hitherto barred by flame and steel, and
Badajos was won!

In that dreadful night assault the English lost 3500 men. "Let it be
considered," says Napier, "that this frightful carnage took place in
the space of less than a hundred yards square--that the slain died not
al