They could not make the attack when the duke wished, the tides were wrong and the moon was too bright. But two days after his final orders they launched the attack on the castle. John was on shore, watching the ships manoeuvre before the fort as he had planned they should do. The scheme worked well. The French defenders took time to get their aim on each attacking ship, and as they got it in range, the ships dropped sail and the rowing barges and the ebbing tide pulled her out of range again. John watched for only a few minutes, to see that the ships were safe, and then turned to run to the landward side of the fort where the army was going in to attack.

The citadel was not taken unawares. They were fully armed and ready on the landward side, and they poured musket fire down the high walls on to the attacking English army. John pushed his way through the crowds of soldiers, sometimes surging forward, and then hanging back, until he was near his duke. Buckingham was at the very centre of the line, dragging the men forward with him towards the musket fire.

Before him were the soldiers running with the scaling ladders. Buckingham was pushing them on, towards the deadly fire, towards the walls of the castle.

‘Go on! Go on!’ he was shouting. ‘For England! For God! For me!’

The men had suffered after three months on the island. Buckingham could not make them laugh any more. They hesitated and went reluctantly forward. At every point in the line the officers were shouting and demanding that they advance. Only the musket fire – as dangerous for those who hung back as for those who ran forward – kept them moving.

‘For the love of God get those ladders up!’ Buckingham shouted. All down the line of the castle wall there were soldiers setting the feet of the scaling ladders into the rocks at the foot of the wall.

‘Up! Up!’ shouted Buckingham ‘Now! And get those damned gates open!’

Tradescant was flung back by a man falling against him as he took a musket ball. He turned to hold him; but at once a man on the other side went down too.

‘Help me!’ the man called.

‘I’ll come back!’ John promised. ‘I have to …’

He broke off, abandoning both men, and plunged forward, trying to keep close to the duke. Buckingham was at the foot of a scaling ladder, urging men up it. For one dreadful moment Tradescant thought that his lord was going to climb the ladder himself.

‘Villiers!’ he shouted above the screams and the firing, and saw Buckingham turn his bare head to look for him.