The British general was so sensible of Phillipon’s firmness and of the courage of his garrison, that he spared them the affront of a summons, yet seeing the breach strongly entrenched, and the enemy’s flank fire, still powerful, he would not in this dread crisis, trust his fortune to a single effort. Eighteen thousand daring soldiers burned for the signal of attack, and as he was unwilling to lose the service of any, to each division he gave a task such as few generals would have the hardihood even to contemplate. On the right Picton’s division was to file out of the trenches, to cross the Rivillas river, and to scale the castle walls, which were from eighteen to twenty-four feet in height, furnished with all means of destruction, and so narrow at top, that the defenders could easily reach and as easily overturn the ladders. On the left, Leith’s division was to make a false attack on the Pardaleras, and a real assault on the distant bastion of San Vincente, where the glacis was mined, the ditch deep, the scarp thirty feet high, and the parapet garnished with bold troops well provided; for Phillipon, following his old plan, had three loaded muskets placed beside each man, that the first fire might be quick and deadly. In the centre, the fourth and light divisions under general Colville, and colonel Andrew Barnard, were to march against the breaches. They were furnished like the third and fifth divisions with ladders and axes, and were preceded by storming parties of five hundred men each with their respective forlorn hopes. The light division was to assault the bastion of Santa Maria; the fourth division to assault the Trinidad, and the curtain; and the columns were divided into storming and firing parties, the former to enter the ditch, the latter to keep the crest of the glacis. Besides these attacks, major Wilson of the forty-eighth was to storm the San Roque with the guards of the trenches, and on the other side of the Guadiana, general Power was to make a feint on the bridge-head. At first only one brigade, of the third division, was to have attacked the castle, but just before the hour fixed upon, a sergeant of sappers having deserted from the enemy, informed Wellington that there was but one communication from the castle to the town, whereupon he ordered the whole division to advance together. This was the outline of the plan, but many nice arrangements filled it up, and some were followed, some disregarded, for it is seldom that all things are strictly attended to in a desperate fight. Nor were the enemy idle, for while it was yet twilight some French cavalry issued from the Pardaleras, escorting an officer who endeavoured to look into the trenches, with a view to ascertain if an assault was intended; but the picquet on that side jumped up, and firing as it run, drove him and his escort back into the works. Then the darkness fell and the troops only awaited the signal. [Illustration: _Vol. 4. Plate 9._