n of positions. But the
43rd charged with a daring and fury absolutely resistless.

Another amazing feature in the day's fight was the manner in which
Colborne, with the 52nd, carried what was called the Signal Redoubt, a
strong work, crowning a steep needle-pointed hill, and overlooking the
whole French position. Colborne led his men up an ascent so sharp that
his horse with difficulty could climb it. The summit was reached, and
the men went in, with a run, at the work, only to find the redoubt
girdled by a wide ditch thirty feet deep. The men halted on the edge
of the deep cutting, and under the fire of the French they fell fast.
Colborne led back his men under the brow of the hill for shelter, and
at three separate points brought them over the crest again. In each
case, after the men had rested under shelter long enough to recover
breath, the word was passed, "Stand up and advance." The men instantly
obeyed, and charged up to the edge of the ditch again, many of the
leading files jumping into it. But it was impossible to cross, and
each time the mass of British infantry stepped coolly back into cover
again.

One sergeant named Mayne, who had leaped into the ditch, found he could
neither climb the ramparts nor get back to his comrades, and he flung
himself on his face. A Frenchman leaned over the rampart, took
leisurely aim, and fired at him as he lay. Mayne had stuck the
billhook of his section at the back of his knapsack, and the bullet
struck it and flattened upon it. Colborne was a man of infinite
resource in war, and at this crisis he made a bugler sound a parley,
hoisted his white pocket-handkerchief, and coolly walked round to the
gate of the redoubt and invited the garrison to surrender. The veteran
who commanded it answered indignantly, "What! I with my battalion
surrender to you with yours?" "Very well," answered Colborne in
French, "the artillery will be up immediately; you cannot hold out, and
you will be surrendered to the Spaniards." That threat was sufficient.
The French officers remonstrated stormily with their commander, and the
work was surrendered. But only one French soldier in the redoubt had
fallen, whereas amongst the 52nd "there fell," says Napier, "200
soldiers of a regiment never surpassed in arms since arms were first
borne by men." In this fight Soult was driven in a little more than
three hours from a mountain position he had been fortifying for more
than three months.