On January 4 the troops intended to carry on the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo were moved up near the place. In an incessant fall of cold rain the Riflemen forded the Agueda; the water being nearly up to their shoulders, the men were obliged to put their pouches on the top of their knapsacks and to hold on to one another to prevent their being swept away by the current. The Light Division occupied Pastores, La Encina, and El Bodon. No sufficient arrangements having been made for their quarters, houses were with difficulty obtained, and officers and men were huddled together wherever they could find shelter. Next day, however, better arrangements were made, and the companies of Riflemen were housed separately. On the 8th the Regiment crossed the Agueda before daylight on a bitterly cold morning at the ford of Cantarona, near the Convent of La Caridad; the water was about knee-deep; and passing round a hill to the north of the town near San Francisco and out of range of the enemy’s guns, they halted. Several French officers appeared and spoke to the officers of the 95th with great politeness, being anxious to ascertain, as it seemed, what this movement meant. It was not long before they learned; for at nine o’clock that evening a party of 300 men of the Light Division, under Colonel Colborne of the 52nd, stormed the detached fort of San Francisco. Captain Crampton’s company of the 1st Battalion first formed upon the crest of the glacis, followed by Travers’s company of the 3rd Battalion, and another company, commanded by Lieutenant Macnamara, of the 1st Battalion. In a moment they were in the ditch and swarming over the parapet. Three guns were taken, 2 captains and 48 men made prisoners, and the rest of the garrison were killed. In this attack Second Lieutenant Rutherford Hawksley, ‘a most promising young man,’ was severely wounded, and died of his wounds. The officer commanding this outwork, a smart, talkative little Frenchman, was, when made prisoner, brought to General Craufurd. He had been stripped by the Portuguese and had nothing on but trousers, and was bleeding from the nose and mouth. Craufurd having expressed regret that he could not furnish him with clothing, Tom Crawley, a well-known private in the 1st Battalion, stepped forward, and saluting, said, ‘He may have my great coat, your honour.’ Craufurd, who was much pleased, said,’You are very good, Rifleman; let him have it.’ Almost at the same time a sergeant was brought in, stripped naked by the Portuguese; he embraced his captain and burst into tears. Harry Smith, then on Craufurd’s Staff, gave him his handkerchief to cover his nakedness.[107]