By the night of the 30th all the army was concentrated beyond Madrid, without having seen an enemy or suffered any molestation, save Skerrett’s detachment, which was fighting all day at the Puente Larga for the protection of the rest. Soult, as Hill had expected, had resolved to force the line of the Jarama and Tajuna that day. But while on the right his cavalry felt forward only to the Tajuna and its broken bridges, on the left he was already in touch with his enemy, for the Puente Larga is only two miles outside Aranjuez, from which the approach to it lies along one of the great avenues of planes that form part of the royal Park between the Tagus and Jarama. The Puente Larga is an immensely long bridge of 16 arches, for the Jarama in winter is a very broad river. Its southern end is commanded by a slight rising ground, its northern lies in the flat and ends in a causeway, by which the road finally mounts up on to the plateau of Valdemoro. Thus it would have been easier to defend from the south than from the north, as Skerrett had to do. An attempt had been made to blow up one of the centre arches of the bridge, but though two mines had been laid, their explosion on the morning of the 30th did not make a complete breach, one parapet and a broad section of the footway beside it remaining intact. The engineer officer in charge, holding that there was no time to make another mine, had a breastwork covered by an abattis thrown up across the northern end of the bridge. Here then was a sort of terrace with balustrades and stone seats, where the bridge and causeway met. Behind the breastwork and the terrace Skerrett placed his two companies of the 95th Rifles and part of the 2/47th, while behind the nearer part of the causeway there was room for the supports, the rest of the 47th and the 2/87th in close column. The ridge of the causeway almost completely sheltered them from fire from the French side of the river, even from the most elevated ground. Three guns of Braun’s Portuguese battery were prepared for action on the right end of the terrace, behind the hastily extemporized breastwork. Half a mile to the rear, at the north end of the causeway, was Skerrett’s reserve, composed of the 3rd batt. of the First Guards, the 20th Portuguese, and the remaining three pieces of Braun’s battery. The whole defending force of five battalions and six guns was somewhat under 4,000 strong.