e them, whence the French were firing
vehemently, and forgetting their pieces were unloaded, snapped them.
"Push on with the bayonet, men!" shouted Napier, as he lay bleeding.
The officers leaped to the front, the men with a stern shout followed;
they were crushed to a front of not more than three or four. They had
to climb without firing a shot in reply up to the muzzles of the French
muskets.

But nothing could stop the men of the light division. A 24-pounder was
placed across the narrow gap in the ramparts; the stormers leaped over
it, and the 43rd and 52nd, coming up in sections abreast, followed.
The 43rd wheeled to the right towards the great breach, the 52nd to the
left, sweeping the ramparts as they went.

Meanwhile the other two attacks had broken into the town; but at the
great breach the dreadful fight still raged, until the 43rd, coming
swiftly along the ramparts, and brushing all opposition aside, took the
defence in the rear. The British there had, as a matter of fact, at
that exact moment pierced the French defence. The two guns that
scourged the breach had wrought deadly havoc amongst the stormers, and
a sergeant and two privates of the 88th--Irishmen all, and whose names
deserve to be preserved--Brazel, Kelly, and Swan--laid down their
firelocks that they might climb more lightly, and, armed only with
their bayonets, forced themselves through the embrasure amongst the
French gunners. They were furiously attacked, and Swan's arm was hewed
off by a sabre stroke; but they stopped the service of the gun, slew
five or six of the French gunners, and held the post until the men of
the 5th, climbing behind them, broke into the battery.

So Ciudad Rodrigo was won, and its governor surrendered his sword to
the youthful lieutenant leading the forlorn hope of the light division,
who, with smoke-blackened face, torn uniform, and staggering from a
dreadful wound, still kept at the head of his men.

[Illustration: Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, 1812. From Napier's
"Peninsular War."]

In the eleven days of the siege Wellington lost 1300 men and officers,
out of whom 650 men and 60 officers were struck down on the slopes of
the breaches. Two notable soldiers died in the attack--Craufurd, the
famous leader of the light division, as he brought his men up to the
lesser breach; and Mackinnon, who commanded a brigade of the third
division, at the great breach. Mackinnon was a gallant Highlander, a
soldier of great pr