gallant French commandant, however, had spent the thirty days of the blockade in perfecting his defences; and, with a wise prevision of the difficulties before them, Frazer records in his "Diary" on August 22: "This St. Sebastian is destined to be a thorn in our sides, or a feather in our caps." At this stage the "thorn" was more visible than the "feather"!

Rey, the French commandant, did not hope to maintain an equal duel with the furious British batteries; his plan was to make assault on the breach hopeless. He constructed immediately behind the great breach an interior rampart, 15 feet high, with outstanding bastions. The apparent breach, therefore, was, in effect, a deathtrap. On reaching its crest the storming party would find before it a huge pit, from 20 to 35 feet deep, its bottom strewn with every sort of impediment; and beyond it a new and unbroken rampart, loopholed for musket-fire, with traverses at either extremity. A mine charged with 12 cwt. of powder was driven beneath the slope along which the stormers must come; two other mines were designed to blow down part of the sea-wall on the British columns as they passed along it to the attack. Never, in fact, was a more desperate task than that of carrying San Sebastian. And it is to be noted that the engineering blunder which made the first attack a failure was repeated. The defences that covered the breach were left undestroyed.

On the night of August 29, a false attack was made on the breach, in order to tempt the besieged to spring their mines, and show the direction and scale of the fire they had prepared for the assaulting column. Lieutenant Macadam, of the 9th, was ordered, with a handful of

men nearest him, to make a pretended attack on the breach. Macadam leaped out of the trench, seventeen men of the Royals at the word of command followed him; and, running forward, reached the foot of the great breach, and in extended order, with loud shouts, and discharging their muskets, proceeded to mount it. They were, of course, flinging their lives away. If the trick had succeeded, these brave men, by their very success, would have been blown into fragments. The French, however, kept their coolness, and shot these brave fellows down, one by one, their leader alone regaining the trenches.

Meanwhile Wellington, dissatisfied with the conduct of his men in the first attack, called for fifty volunteers from each of the fifteen regiments in the 1st, 4th, and light divisions; "men," the appeal ran," who could show other troops how to mount a breach." That stinging phrase was felt by the gallant men of the 5th division like the stroke of a whip; but the response in the other divisions was eager, and even tumultuous. Here is a picturesque little passage from the "Private Journal" of Larpent:

"There was nothing but confusion in the two divisions here last night (the light and 4th), from the eagerness of the officers to volunteer, and the difficulty of determining who were to be refused and who allowed to go and run their heads into a hole in the wall, full of fire and danger! Major Napier was here quite in misery, because, though he had volunteered first, Lieutenant-colonel Hunt of the 52nd, his superior officer, insisted on his right to go. The latter said that Napier had been in the breach at Badajoz, and he had a fair

claim to go now. So it is among the subalterns; ten have volunteered where two are to be accepted. Hunt, being lieutenant-colonel, has nothing but honour to look to; as to promotion, he is past that. The men say that they don't know what they are to do, but they are ready to go anywhere."

The "Historical Record" of the 52nd says that when Wellington's appeal reached that regiment " entire companies volunteered, and the captains had a difficult task in selecting the men most fit for such an undertaking, without hurting the feelings of the others; in many cases lots were resorted to to settle the claims of those gallant fellows who contended for the honour of upholding the fame of their regiment." When the order was communicated to the 4th division, and volunteers were invited to step to the front, the whole division moved forward!

Leith, however, who commanded the 5th division, was much aggrieved at the slight put upon his men, and he placed the 750 volunteers who were to "show other troops how to mount a breach" in support, and gave the men of the 5th division the post of honour. The men of that division, indeed, were so exasperated with the slight put upon them that there was some risk of them firing on the volunteers themselves, instead of on the French!

The assault was fixed for 11 o'clock on the morning of August 31. Robinson's brigade was formed in two columns. One was to storm the eastern end of the curtain that crossed the isthmus, the other was to assail the great breach; Bradford's Portuguese were to

cross the river and assault the smaller and more northerly breach.

The morning broke gloomy and black. A dense mist drifted down from the high valleys of the Pyrenees, and girdled San Sebastian with a shroud of grey vapour, so dense that the besieging batteries could not fire. As the day advanced, however, the fog lifted, and a tempest of shot was poured for more than two hours on the defences of the city. Eleven o'clock struck; the batteries suddenly ceased. Robinson's men leaped from their trench, and a river of scarlet uniforms swept towards the breach. It was known that heavy mines were in the path of the column; but twelve men led by a sergeant ran forward at speed, and leaped upon the covered way to cut the fuse by which the mine was to be exploded. Startled by their rush, the French hurriedly fired the mine. The sergeant and his brave band were instantly destroyed, and the great sea-wall was thrown, with a terrific crash, upon the flank of the advancing column, crushing some forty men beneath it. Had it been fired some five minutes later it would have slain hundreds. As it was it did not arrest the attack for a moment. Macguire, of the 4th, who led the forlorn hope, "conspicuous," says Napier, "from his long white plume, his fine figure, and his swiftness, bounded far ahead of his men in all the pride of youthful strength and courage. But at the foot of the great breach he fell dead, and the stormers went sweeping, like a dark surge, over his body."

On pressed the stormers. Their array was broken by the slippery rocks, over which they stumbled as they charged, and by the fire which scourged them

from the summit of the wall on their left. But they reached the breach, swept up it without a pause, and gained its narrow crest. They found themselves on

the edge of a gulf, barred at its further edge by a frowning rampart, from which flashed incessantly the flame of the French muskets; while from every side a storm of bullets swept over them. The flow of the eager soldiers up the breach was constant, but there was no living in the deadly fire that played on the crest. The attack on the half bastion of St. John was equally obstinate and bloody, and equally ineffective. The breach was flanked by a traverse held by French grenadiers; it was scourged by guns from every angle. The British could not force their way; they would not yield, and they fell fast and thick. Still the attack was fed by fresh troops; but both breaches were barred as by a sword of flame.

The volunteers from the other divisions had been held back with difficulty so far, and were now calling out to know "why they had been brought there if they were not to lead the assault." They were at last let loose; and, to quote Napier, "went like a whirlwind to the breaches, and again the crowded masses swarmed up the face of the ruins; but reaching the crest line they came down again like a falling wall. Crowd