Twelve hundred men were employed for the next eight days in strengthening the works, Sir Francis being always with them at night, when the water was low, encouraging them by his presence and example. Early in January he learned that the enemy were preparing for the assault, and on the 7th a crushing fire was kept up on the Porc-Espic, Helmond, and Sand-hill forts. The Spaniards had by this time fired 163,200 cannon-shot into the town, and scarcely a whole house was left standing. Towards evening they were seen bringing scaling-ladders to the opposite bank of the Haven. Two thousand Italian and Spanish troops had been told off to attack the sand-hill, two thousand were to assault Helmond and the Porc-Espic, two parties of five hundred men each were to attack other works, while on the east side Count Bucquoy was to deliver a general assault. The English general watched all these preparations with the greatest vigilance. At high water he closed the west sluice, which let the water into the town ditch from the Old Haven, in the rear of Helmond, in order to retain as much water as possible, and stationed his troops at the various points most threatened. Sir Horace Vere and Sir Charles Fairfax, with twelve weak companies, some of them reduced to ten or twelve men, were stationed on the sand-hill. Four of the strongest companies garrisoned the Porc-Espic; ten weak companies and nine cannon loaded with musket bullets defended the Helmond. These posts were commanded by Sergeant-major Carpenter and Captain Meetkerk; the rest of the force were disposed at the other threatened points. Sir Francis himself, with Sir Lionel Vickars as his right hand, took his post on the wall of the old town, between the sand-hill and the Schottenburg, which had been much damaged by the action of the waves during the gales and by the enemy's shot. Barrels of ashes, heaps of stones and bricks, hoops bound with squibs and fireworks, ropes of pitch, hand-grenades, and barrels of nails were collected in readiness to hurl down upon the assailants. At dusk the besiegers ceased firing, to allow the guns to cool. Two engineer officers with fifty stout sappers, who each had a rose-noble for every quarter of an hour's work, got on to the breach in front of the sand-hill, and threw up a small breastwork, strengthened by palisades, across it. An officer crept down towards the Old Haven, and presently returned with the news that two thousand of the enemy were wading across, and forming up in battalions on the Ostend side.