Picton’s division, as already mentioned, had been detected by the French as it was filing into the parallel below the Castle: and since a heavy fire was at once opened on it, there was no use in halting, and the general gave the order to advance without delay. The men went forward on a narrow front, having to cross the Rivillas at the ruined mill where alone it was fordable. This was done under fire, but with no great loss. The palisade on the other bank of the stream was broken down by a general rush, and the storming-party found itself at the foot of the lofty Castle hill. To get the ladders up it was a most difficult business--the slope was very steep, almost precipitous in parts, and the ladders were thirty feet long and terribly heavy. Though no assault had been expected here, and the preparations were not so elaborate as at the breaches, yet the besieged were not caught unprepared, and the column, as it climbed the hill, was torn by cannon shot and thinned by musketry. The French threw fire-balls over the wall, and other incandescent stuff (_carcasses_), so there was fair light by which to see the stormers. Picton was hit in the groin down by the Rivillas, and the charge of the assault fell to his senior brigadier, Kempt, and Major Burgoyne of the Engineers. The narrow space at the foot of the walls being reached, the ladders were reared, one after the other, toward the south end of the Castle wall. Six being at last ready in spots close to each other, an attempt was made to mount, with an officer at the head of each. But the fire was so heavy, that no man reached the last rungs alive, and the enemy overthrew all the ladders and broke several of them. One is said to have been pulled up by main force into the Castle! Meanwhile the besieged cast heavy stones and broken beams into the mass of men clustering along the foot of the wall, and slew many. But the 3rd Division was not spent--Kempt’s brigade had delivered the first rush--Champlemond’s Portuguese headed the second, when they had climbed the slope--but also to no effect. Lastly the rear brigade--Campbell’s--came up, and gave a new impetus to the attack. There was now a very large force, 4,000 men, striving all along the base of the wall, on a front of some 200 yards. Wherever footing could be found ladders were reared, now at considerable distances from each other. The garrison of the Castle was not large--two Hessian and one French company and the gunners, under 300 men, and when simultaneous attacks were delivered at many points, some of them were scantily opposed. Hence it came that in more places than one men at last scrambled to the crest of the wall. A private of the 45th is said to have been the first man whose body fell inside, not outside, the battlements--the second, we are told, was an ensign (McAlpin) of the 88th, who defended himself for a moment on the crest before he was shot. The third man to gain the summit was Colonel Ridge