On the afternoon of the 18th the engineer and artillery officers reported to Suchet that they had made a sufficient breach in the curtain of the work called the Dos Mayo battery, just where it joined on the tower of San Pedro, and that they regarded it as practicable for assault. The Marshal ordered that the storm should be fixed for the same evening, lest the Spaniards should succeed in repairing the breach during the hours of darkness. The column of assault consisted of 400 men, picked from Habert’s division, supported by a reserve of Palombini’s Italians. The fire of the siege artillery was kept up to the last moment, and did much harm to the garrison, who were very clearly seen piling gabions, sandbags, and stones on the ruinous lip of the breach, in disregard of the steady fire that kept pounding it down [21]. [21] See narrative of Vacani, an eye-witness (vol. v. p. 399). The assault was duly delivered at five o’clock, and proved a complete failure. The stormers found the breach most difficult to climb, as its face was entirely formed of big blocks of stone without earth or débris. The column won its way half up the ascent, and isolated officers and men got further, and were bayoneted or shot at close quarters by the defenders, who clustered very thickly at the top. But no general rush of men could reach the summit, where (it is said) the actual gap in the parapet was not more than six or seven feet broad. After several ineffective attempts to mount, the assailants came to a stand on the lower part of the slope, and opened a scattering fire on the Spaniards above them. Whereupon, seeing the opportunity lost, General Habert, who had been given charge of the operations, ordered the men to fall back to the trenches, and to abandon the assault. This was a most creditable feat of arms for the garrison, who had hardly a cannon to help them, and held their own almost entirely by musketry fire, though they rolled some live shells, beams, and large stones down the breach at intervals. Their casualties were heavy, but those of the assailants, as was natural, much greater. Suchet lost at least 300 men, though in his dispatch to the Emperor[22] he gave an elaborate table of casualties showing a total of only 173. But his ‘returns,’ even the most specious looking of them, should never be trusted--as will be seen when we are dealing with the second battle of Castalla in a later volume. This excellent officer was as untrustworthy as Soult or Masséna in the figures which he sent to his master[23]. [22] To be found in print in Belmas, iv. pp. 124-8.