On the night of the 22nd, the flotilla put to sea and encountered some stormy weather on the passage. In the afternoon of the 24th it neared the Adour, when the sea, tossed into foaming waves by a driving gale, wore an aspect of peculiar danger. A high and angry surf being on the bar and the tide furious, many of the native crews ran below in terror and refused to navigate their boats. Several fell on their knees and spent much of their energy in earnest devotion. At length, urged to their duty by the angry threats of the engineers and sappers, most of the masters yielded a reluctant but desperate submission, and steering into the channel, one vessel after another cut through the frightful breakers and soon gained the position chosen for the bridge. This hazardous service was not accomplished without loss to the sappers. In an instant, one vessel was engulphed on the bar, and second-corporal Patrick Power and private John M‘Knight, perished. Another vessel had safely outridden the surf, but was overtaken by an overwhelming wave that dashed her to pieces. In this wreck, corporal James Gorman and private William Bunn were washed to the shore, and after several hours' insensibility and exposure to cold, reached their company in a miserable plight, the next morning. In forming the bridge, the chasse-marées were anchored head and stern, about 30 feet apart; and as soon as the washboards were cut away and the grooved timbers spiked to the decks, the cables were stretched across the vessels from shore to shore, and the planks or superstructure quickly lashed to them. On the right bank of the river, the ends of the cables were secured to some 18-pounder guns half buried in the marsh; and on the left bank were hauled taut by mechanical ingenuity. From the violent heaving of the vessels it was unsafe to fix the planks in the intervals between them, but there were not wanting men who thought less of the danger than the prompt execution of the service. With skill equal to their assiduity, the companies laboured in completing the bridge, even working throughout the night, and the structure was fully ready for the passage of the troops on the 26th of February.[205] The boom was laid by the navy and completed soon after the bridge. ----- Footnote 205: Jones’s ‘Sieges,’ ii., p. 118, 2nd edit. As a reward for their services, most of the men that belonged to the flotilla received a guinea and a pair of shoes. -----