Meanwhile, waiting for the moment when Marmont and Dorsenne should disperse their troops into a less concentrated position, he took preliminary measures to face that eventuality when it should occur. The main thing was to get the battering-train, with which Ciudad Rodrigo would have to be attacked, close up to its objective. As we have already seen[166], it had been collected far to the rear, at the obscure village of Villa da Ponte near Trancoso. Between that spot and Rodrigo there were eighty miles of bad mountain roads: if Wellington had waited till he heard that Marmont had moved, before he began to bring up his heavy guns, he would have lost many days. Accordingly he commenced to push them forward as early as November 12th: their temporary shelter was to be in the fortress of Almeida, which was already so far restored that it could be regarded as safe against anything short of a regular siege. It was certain that Marmont would not come forward at midwinter for any such operation, and against raids or demonstrations the place was already secure. On December 4th Wellington reported[167] to Lord Liverpool that it would be completely ‘re-established as a military post’ within a few weeks; and on the 19th he announced that it was now ‘a place of security,’ and could be trusted to resist any attack whatever. But, long before even the first of these dates, it was beginning to receive the siege-material which Alexander Dickson was ordered to bring up from the rear. As early as November 22nd the first division of heavy guns entered its gates: it was given out--to deceive French spies--that the pieces were only intended to arm the walls, and at the same time Dickson was actively employed in mounting on them a number of guns of heavy calibre, wrecked in the explosion when Brennier evacuated Almeida in May 1811. Twenty-five of them were in position before Christmas Day. The indefatigable artillery commandant had also hunted out of the ruins no less than 8,000 round shot: it was originally intended that they should go into the magazines of the garrison; but, when the time for action came, Wellington sent the greater part of this stock of second-hand shot to the front, because they were immediately available, and ordered the Almeida stores to be replenished, as occasion served, by the later convoys that arrived from Villa da Ponte. [166] See vol. iv. p. 549. [167] _Dispatches_, viii, Report of Dec. 28 to Lord Liverpool on the late campaign.