The din of battle was prodigious, for the rattle of musketry was echoed and re-echoed from the rocks. The progress of the skirmishers could only be noted by the light smoke rising through the foliage and by the shouts of the soldiers, which were echoed by the still louder ones of the French, gathered strongly on the hill above them. As the British made their way up, Laborde, who was still anxiously looking for the expected coming of Loison, withdrew a portion of his troops from the left and strengthened his right, in order to hold on as long as possible on the side from which aid was expected. The ardour of the British to get to close quarters favoured this movement.

It had been intended that the 9th and 29th Regiments should take the right-hand path where the track they were following up the pass forked, and so join Trant's Portuguese at the top of the hill and fall upon the French left. The left-hand path, however, was the one that would take them direct to the enemy, and the 29th, which was leading, took this, and the 9th followed them. So rapidly did they press up the hill that they arrived at the crest before Ferguson and Fane, on the left, and Trant on the right, had got far enough to menace the line of retreat, and so shake the enemy's position. The consequence was, that as the right wing of the 29th arrived at the top of the path it was met by a very heavy fire before it could form, and some companies of a French regiment, who had been cut off from the main body by its sudden appearance, charged through the disordered troops and carried with them a major and fifty or sixty other prisoners.