The Spanish general should have rejoiced to learn that Victor had sent an appreciable part of his army so far afield--fifteen miles from Chiclana--and by advancing he could have forced the Marshal to come to this distance from his lines in order to support Cassagne. A battle would no doubt have followed--but it was for a battle that the army had sailed to Tarifa. And by drawing Victor’s whole fighting force so far away from Cadiz, La Peña would have given a unique opportunity to the garrison to come out and destroy the siege-works. Meanwhile, if the French lost the battle they would be annihilated, being off their line of retreat; if they won it, they would return to find the greater part of the siege-works destroyed. But this was not the line of thought that guided La Peña; he was, as his previous record showed, a shirker of responsibilities, and the prospect of a battle on the morrow, or the day after, seems to have paralysed him. To every one’s surprise he gave orders that the army, waiting till dusk had come on, should leave the Medina road, and march across country by a bad bridle-path to Vejer, on the other route from Tarifa to Cadiz. Graham protested against a second night march, after the experience of the first, and rightly, for news came in ere night that the road along the north side of the Barbate river, which La Peña had intended to use, was absolutely under water from inundations. La Peña therefore consented to wait till the next morning (March 3rd) and to use another country road, that between the north end of the La Janda lagoon and the river into which it falls. The army marched at 8 o’clock--Lardizabal as before in front, the English division in the rear. But on reaching the intended crossing-place, it was found that this road, like that north of the river, was flooded, the lagoon having overflowed at its northern end, and joined itself in one shallow sheet of water to the Barbate. Graham, on arriving at the passage, found the Spaniards halted at the edge of the flood, and apparently at a nonplus. The energetic old man took the business out of La Peña’s hands--he and his staff rode into the water, and sought personally for the track of the submerged causeway, which they fortunately found to be nowhere more than three feet under the surface of the flood. He placed men along the track at intervals, to guide those who should follow, and sat on his horse in the middle of the ford encouraging the troops as they marched past him. ‘I set the example of going into the water,’ he remarks in his diary, ‘which was followed by Lacy, the Prince of Anglona, and others. The passage lasted three hours, and would have taken double that time but for the exertions made to force the men to keep the files connected.’ It was 12 o’clock at night before the army reached Vejer--having taken fifteen hours to cover ten miles, owing to the delays at the inundation. Every one was wet through and much fatigued, for the weather was still very cold.