It had been intended, as was said above, that all the columns should converge simultaneously on their points of attack, and for that reason the distances between the starting-point of each division and its objective had been calculated with care. But, as a matter of fact, the hour of 10 p.m. was not quite accurately kept. On the right Picton’s division was descried by the French in the Castle as it was lining the first parallel, and was heavily fired upon at 9.45, whereupon the general, seeing that his men were discovered, ordered the advance to begin at once--the 3rd Division was fording the Rivillas under a blaze of fire from the Castle and the San Pedro bastion before 10 struck on the cathedral clock. On the other hand, at the western flank, the officer in charge of the ladder and hay-bag party which was to lead the 5th Division, lost his way along the bank of the Guadiana, while coming up from the Park to take his place at the head of Leith’s men. The column had to wait for the ladders, and was more than an hour late in starting. Only the central attack, on the three breaches, was delivered with exact punctuality. It is perhaps best to deal with this unhappy assault first--it was a horrible affair, and fully two-thirds of the losses that night were incurred in it. The two divisions, as ordered, came down the ravine to the left of the Pardaleras hill without being discovered: the line of vision from the town was in their favour till they were actually on the glacis, and heavy firing against Picton’s column was heard as they came forward. The 4th Division was turning to the right, the Light Division to the left, just as they drew near the ditch, when suddenly they were descried, and the French, who were well prepared and had long been waiting for the expected assault, opened on them with musketry from all the breaches, and with artillery from the unruined flanking bastions. The storm began as unhappily as it was to end. The advance of the 4th Division bearing to the right, came on a part of the ditch into which the inundation had been admitted--not knowing its depth, nor that the French had made a six-foot cutting at the foot of the counterscarp. Many men, not waiting for the ladders, sprang down into the water, thinking it to be a mere puddle. The leading files nearly all perished--the regimental record of the Welsh Fusiliers shows twenty men drowned--that of the Portuguese regiment which was behind the Fusiliers as many as thirty. Finding the ditch impassable here, the rest of the 4th Division storming-party swerved to the left, and, getting beyond the inundation, planted their ladders there: some came down in this way, more by simply taking a fourteen-foot leap on to the hay-bags, which they duly cast down. At the same moment the advance of the Light Division descended in a similar fashion into the ditch farther to the left, towards Santa Maria. Many men were already at the