The leading men of the assault party reached the ditch, but now the first of the cannon on the bastions joined in with the musket fire, the blast of flame briefly illuminating the walls in a lurid orange glow as the grapeshot lashed the ground in front of the ditch, dashing several men on to the grass. More figures emerged from the darkness, some carrying plank-covered ladders which they threw over the ditch and rushed on towards the breach. Soon over a hundred men were struggling up the rubble and some were on the verge of gaining the breach, under a storm of musket fire that was cutting them down all the time. Then, as the first redcoat clambered into the breach, there was a brilliant flash of light close to the foot of the wall which sent rocks and men and body parts flying through the air as the walls and approaches were briefly lit up for hundreds of yards, freezing thousands of men in a tableau of destruction. The concussion and roar of the explosion struck the officers in the fort a moment later. Despite the shock, the assault continued without any pause.

‘A mine!’ Somerset exclaimed in horror. ‘They hid a mine in the rubble.’

‘Thank you, Somerset,’ Arthur snapped tersely. ‘I am following events, you know.’

The assault party was now swarming across the ditch and the fire from the walls was reaching a new intensity, cutting down the attackers in swathes, all in full view of Arthur and his staff as the lurid flare of artillery and muskets continuously illuminated the scene. But the horror of the assault was not yet complete. As the first of the attackers climbed into the breach they were confronted by a screen of chevaux de frise, wooden beams pierced with sharpened sword blades and supported by trestles at each end. In front of them were planks with six-inch nails protruding from the surface, and behind them a barricade lined with French marksmen. Dozens of redcoats stumbled on to the nails in agony before being shot down or impaled on the sword blades and left to hang there, screaming as they bled to death.

The assault party died in the breach, and now the following wave of the Light Division came forward, the men throwing themselves into the attack, determined to succeed where their comrades had failed. They charged over the ditch, their ranks thinned by grapeshot, and then on to the breach where they faltered, unable to find any way over the savage obstacles waiting for them.