The summer seemed reluctant to loosen its grip on Spain and every day the sun beat down on the parched landscape as the army marched north, driving back the small French force that had been scraped together after Salamanca. Then, as Arthur commenced his siege of Burgos, the weather changed as autumn swept in with unseasonal ferocity. The landscape of Castile was lashed by rainstorms which flooded the trenches and batteries that had been painstakingly cut out of the ground by Arthur’s men. The engineers had suffered heavy losses at the two previous sieges and had been reduced to a mere sixteen officers and other ranks. Nor was there sufficient siege artillery to end the task swiftly. By the time the army had reached Burgos along the heavily rutted and broken-up road that led north from Madrid, only three eighteen-pounders had survived the journey. The rest had suffered broken wheels or splintered gun carriages and had to be left behind while repairs were attempted.

‘So much for Alava’s sources,’ Somerset commented bitterly as he gazed at the fortress sitting atop a steep-sided hill. It was separated from the rest of the town by a ravine and linked to the town by a narrow spur of rock. A powerful battery covered this approach and rendered any frontal assault suicidal. Moreover, the fortress was constructed in concentric tiers so that the defenders would be able to continue their resistance even if the outer wall was taken. Somerset stared sourly at the fortress. ‘The place is all but impregnable, sir.’

‘Nonsense!’ Arthur snapped and then, cross at his fraying temper, continued more quietly, ‘We have one of their outworks, thanks to Major Somers-Cocks. It is just a question of time and steady effort and the fortress will be ours.’

Somerset glanced at him and then back at the fortress without saying a word, but his doubt and frustration were palpable. Arthur could understand his sentiment easily enough. There were thirty-five thousand men camped around the fortress. According to the local people the garrison amounted to little more than two thousand men, but their commander, General Dubreton, was every bit as wily and spirited as his comrade Philippon had been at Badajoz. Memory of that terrible siege had been preying on Arthur’s mind ever since the army had arrived before Burgos and he was determined not to repeat the bloody assault that had cost him so dearly. There would be no massed assault this time. Burgos would be taken piece by piece.

‘My dear Somerset,’ he said patiently, ‘I have seen many hill forts like this when I served in India and I managed to break into them readily enough. We will have Burgos in due course.’

‘I trust you are right, sir.’

‘How are the preparations for the mine proceeding?’