I have the honour to lead the storming party, and I want a hundred volunteers from each regiment.

Those who will go with me, step forward." Instantly the battalions surged forward--the press of the volunteers carrying us with them as if we would have marched on Ciudad Rodrigo with one united front.
The Major flung up a hand and turned to General Craufurd.

Their eyes met, and they both broke out laughing.
This much I saw and heard.

And when, at six o'clock, they marched us down under the lee of San Francisco, I saw Lord Wellington ride up, dismount, give over his horse to an orderly and walk past our column into the darkness.

He was going to give the last directions to Major Napier and the storming party: but they were drawn up behind an angle of the convent wall; and we, the supporting columns, massed in the darkness two hundred yards in the rear, neither saw the conference nor caught more than the high clear tones of Craufurd addressing his men for the last time.
Then, after many minutes of silence, suddenly the sky over the convent wall opened with a glare and shut again, and we heard the French guns tearing the night.