The French officer took a last look round the breach and then down the slope towards Somers-Cocks and his men, charging forward to join the survivors of the attack battling their way back up the final stretch of trench before the breach. With a wave of his sword the Frenchman ordered his men towards the gap and they withdrew in good order and disappeared from view.

‘We lost ninety-four killed and thirty-two wounded, most of the tools that Perkins had brought forward, and twenty yards of the approach trench have been pushed in,’ Somerset reported that night. ‘The breach is back in our hands, and Major Somers-Cocks has established a permanent force of two companies of the Coldstream Guards to protect our foothold inside the fortress. Captain Morris has taken over the mining operation, my lord.’

‘Very well.’ Arthur nodded wearily. ‘We’ll proceed with the siege, for now. Did you read the latest report from our Spanish friends?’

The news was bad. The Spanish general charged with holding up any French advance fromValencia towards Madrid had taken umbrage at the appointment of Arthur to supreme commander and mutinied. Meanwhile Soult was marching to join Joseph Bonaparte. To the north of Burgos, General Souham had been confirmed in his appointment as Marmont’s replacement and had gathered nearly fifty thousand men on the far bank of the Ebro. Any day now, Arthur expected to hear that Souham had crossed the river and was making for Burgos. The final slice of misery was an intercepted message from the French Emperor to his brother announcing that he had won a great victory over the Russians at Borodino and was on the verge of capturing Moscow.

Somerset sat back in his chair despondently. ‘Unless our luck changes, it may well be prudent to cut our losses and retreat.’

‘From Burgos, perhaps,’ Arthur agreed. ‘But I fear that we may also have to abandon Madrid as well. What else can we do if this news is accurate? If I had the whole army here I could take on Souham and defeat him, at the price of leaving Madrid open to Soult. If I return to Madrid and combine Hill’s army with mine that would give us sixty-five thousand men with which to face Soult with as many as a hundred thousand, while Souham closes on us from the north. We would be caught in a vice.’ Arthur shut his eyes and forced his exhausted mind to think as clearly as possible. ‘The best we can hope for now is to take Burgos and put in a strong, well-provisioned, garrison. That will hold Souham up while we return to Madrid. Then? All I can do is pray that Soult is delayed.’