The General-in-Chief seemed stunned by the suddenness of the disaster. ‘He looked like a man of stone,’ says Schepeler, who rode at his side, ‘when any observation was made to him he made no reply, and he could come to no decision. He would not allow Zayas to fight, and when a colonel (the author of this work) suggested at the commencement of the retreat that it would be well to burn certain houses which lay dangerously close to the entrenched camp, he kept silence. Whereupon Zayas observed in bitter rage to this officer: “Truly you are dull, my German friend; do you not see that you cannot wake the man up?”’ According to the narratives of several contemporaries there would still have been time at this moment to direct the retreating column southward and escape, as Obispo did, along the Albufera. For Habert (as we shall see) had been much slower than Harispe in his turning movement by the side of the Mediterranean. Some, among them Schepeler, suggest that the whole garrison might have broken out by the northern bridges and got away. For Palombini was not in a condition to hinder them, and the Neapolitans in front of the bridge-heads were but a handful of 1,200 men. But the General, still apparently unconscious of what was going on about him, drew back into the entrenched camp, and did no more. Habert, meanwhile, finally completed his movement, and joined hands with Harispe at last. His lateness was to be accounted for not by the strength of the opposition made by the irregular troops in front of him, but by the fact that his advance had been much hindered by the fire of the flotilla lying off the mouth of the Guadalaviar. Here there was a swarm of gunboats supported by a British 74 and a frigate. Habert would not commence his passage till he had driven them away, by placing a battery of sixteen siege-guns on the shore near the Grao. After much firing the squadron sheered off[56], and about midday the French division crossed the Guadalaviar, partly by fording, partly on a hastily constructed bridge, and attacked the line of scattered works defended by irregulars which lay behind. The Spaniards were successively evicted from all of them, as far as the fort of Monte Oliveto. Miranda’s division kept within the entrenched camp, and gave no assistance to the bands without; but it was late afternoon before Habert had accomplished his task, and finally got into touch with Harispe. [56] Napier says (iv. p. 30) that the gunboats fled without firing a shot. Suchet and Schepeler speak of much firing, as does Arteche.