too, had the worst roads during the last days of the advance, and its commissariat arrangements had gone wrong, while little could be gleaned from the countryside. The horses began to fail, and stragglers to drop behind. On the 10th Soult resolved to see whether Wellington was disposed to hold Alba de Tormes, or whether the detachment there would blow up the bridge and retire when attacked. Operations began by the driving in of the pickets of Long’s Light Dragoons, who had been kept as far forward as possible till the last moment. They lost a few men in retiring. Soult then placed three batteries on the hill to the east of the town, and commenced to shell it at about two o’clock in the afternoon; shortly afterwards twelve voltigeur companies of the Fifth Division deployed in long lines, and began to press up towards the place, taking every possible advantage of cover, while the heavy columns of the regiments to which they belonged, and of Daricau’s division in support, were visible in the rear. Alba was held by Howard’s brigade of the 2nd Division (1/50th, 1/71st, 1/92nd); on the other side of the water, as a reserve, were Hamilton’s Portuguese (2nd, 4th, 10th, and 14th Line) and the batteries of Arriaga and Braun, placed in a position from which they could flank any attacks on the bridge. The town had been prepared for defence, the gaps in its walls having been filled up with rough palisading, and its non-existent gates built up with barricades of stone and timber. Each of the three British regiments held one-third of the circumference of the wall, with half its companies in firing-line and the others in reserve under shelter. From two till five, when dusk fell, Soult continued to batter the town; but ‘notwithstanding the shower of shot and shell which plunged and danced about the streets in every direction[158]’ the losses of the defenders were quite moderate: they had been given time on the 9th to extemporize good shelter with barricades and traverses, and kept under cover. Thrice during the afternoon the lines of voltigeurs, who had thrown themselves into the ravines and ditches around the walls, received orders to charge in; but on each occasion the bickering fire which they had hitherto received burst out into a blaze as they approached the walls, and their losses were so great that they had to run back into cover. Hamilton reinforced the garrison at dusk with two of Da Costa’s Portuguese battalions (of the 2nd and 14th Line). At nightfall the French had accomplished absolutely nothing.