Picton’s officer saluted and ran back down the stairs to his horse. Within twenty minutes there was a ferocious fusillade of shots to the north and then the shrill notes of bugles as the Fifth Division stormed into the streets of Badajoz. The fire from the French soldiers around the breaches quickly died away and then there was only sporadic shooting, fading slowly as the enemy pulled back to the northern sector of the town. Below the fort, the Light Division was warily advancing towards the breach again. This time the walls were silent, the ramparts and bastions abandoned by the enemy. Arthur watched as the leading company clambered over the bodies in the breach and then disappeared into the town, followed by the rest of the battalion.

‘Come, Somerset, Alava!’ He turned and hurried out of the fort, striding swiftly over the open ground towards the breach. They came across the first bodies a short distance from the ditch, sprawled and twisted on the ground. The rear formations of the division were standing formed up in front of the ditch waiting their turn to enter the town. General Alten was on the far side ensuring that his men did not advance in a mad rush. Until the lethal obstacles were removed it would be too perilous. Alten saw Arthur and the others approaching and turned to salute his commander.

‘A very bloody business, my lord.’

‘Indeed. But we have the town.’

‘Yes. There is that.’

For a moment there was elation in Arthur’s heart. Then his gaze travelled up the pile of bodies, rising to the breach where yet more lay heaped. A company of Alten’s men had stacked their muskets and were busy clearing away the spiked planks and the chevaux de frise while other men searched amongst the bodies for the living. Here and there a voice called out for help, or groaned in agony, and the dead were pulled away so that the wounded could be freed from the tangle of limbs. Meanwhile, the companies entering the breach were obliged to climb over the bodies of their comrades.

‘What is that smell?’ asked Somerset.

Arthur sniffed. It was like roasting meat and his stomach lurched as he realised it came from the men who had died when the mine had exploded. He pressed a gloved hand to his nose as he stared at the hellish scene.

‘What was it you said, General Alava?You had never before seen such gallantry?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘I hope that I shall never again be the instrument of putting them to such a test as that to which they were put tonight.’