and trampling alike upon the dead and the wounded, these
brave men maintained the combat."

It was the attack on the smaller breach which really carried Ciudad
Rodrigo; and George Napier, who led it, has left a graphic narrative of
the exciting experiences of that dreadful night. The light division
was to attack, and Craufurd, with whom Napier was a favourite, gave him
command of the storming party. He was to ask for 100 volunteers from
each of the three British regiments--the 43rd, 52nd, and the Rifle
Corps--in the division. Napier halted these regiments just as they had
forded the bitterly cold river on their way to the trenches.
"Soldiers," he said, "I want 100 men from each regiment to form the
storming party which is to lead the light division to-night. Those who
will go with me come forward!" Instantly there was a rush forward of
the whole division, and Napier had to take his 300 men out of a tumult
of nearly 1500 candidates. He formed them into three companies, under
Captains Ferguson, Jones, and Mitchell. Gurwood, of the 52nd, led the
forlorn hope, consisting of twenty-five men and two sergeants.
Wellington himself came to the trench and showed Napier and Colborne,
through the gloom of the early night, the exact position of the breach.
A staff-officer looking on, said, "Your men are not loaded. Why don't
you make them load?" Napier replied, "If we don't do the business with
the bayonet we shall not do it all. I shall not load." "Let him
alone," said Wellington; "let him go his own way." Picton had adopted
the same grim policy with the third division. As each regiment passed
him, filing into the trenches, his injunction was, "No powder! We'll
do the thing with the _could_ iron."

A party of Portuguese carrying bags filled with grass were to run with
the storming party and throw the bags into the ditch, as the leap was
too deep for the men. But the Portuguese hesitated, the tumult of the
attack on the great breach suddenly broke on the night, and the forlorn
hope went running up, leaped into the ditch a depth of eleven feet, and
clambered up the steep slope beyond, while Napier with his stormers
came with a run behind them. In the dark for a moment the breach was
lost, but found again, and up the steep quarry of broken stone the
attack swept. About two-thirds of the way up Napier's arm was smashed
by a grape-shot, and he fell. His men, checked for a moment, lifted
their muskets to the gap abov