The ascent against Whittingham was so ruggedly steep, and the upper part so intrenched, that the battle resolved itself there at once into a stationary skirmish of light troops; but on the other side of the spur the French mounted the height, slowly indeed and with many skirmishers, yet so resolutely, that it was evident good fighting only would send them down again. Their light troops, spreading over the face of the Sierra and in some places attaining the summit, were met and held in play by the Anglo-Sicilian troops with changing fortune; but where the main column came on the 27th Regiment there was a terrible crash of battle, and preceded by a singular encounter. For an abrupt declination of ground enabled the French to halt and re-form for the decisive assault, out of fire, yet close to that regiment which was by order lying down in expectation of the charge. Suddenly a grenadier officer, rising alone to the upper ground, challenged Waldron the captain of the 27th Grenadiers to single combat; he, an agile Irishman of boiling courage, instantly leaped forward to the duel, and the hostile lines though ready to charge awaited the result. Rapidly the champions’ swords clashed and glittered in the sun, but Waldron cleft his adversary’s head in twain, and the 27th springing up with a deafening shout charged and sent the French, maugre their numbers and courage, down the mountain side, covering it with their dead and wounded. It was a glorious exploit, erroneously attributed in the despatch to Colonel Adam, though entirely conducted by the colonel of the regiment, Reeves.
Suchet seeing his principal column thus broken, and having the worst of the fight in other parts, made two secondary attacks with his reserve to cover a rally, yet failed in both and his army was thus separated in three parts without connection; for the column beaten by Reeves was in great confusion at the foot of the Sierra, the exploring column was on the left, and the cavalry beyond the baranco, the only passage across it being commanded by the allies. A vigorous sally from Castalla, and a general advance, would then have compelled the French-infantry to fall back upon Biar in confusion before the cavalry could come to their assistance, and the victory would have been completed; but Murray, who had remained during the whole action behind Castalla, first gave Suchet time to rally and retire in order towards the pass of Biar, and then gradually passing out Clinton’s and Roche’s divisions by the right of the town, with a tedious pedantic movement, changed his own front, keeping his left at the foot of the heights, and extending his right, covered by the cavalry, towards another sierra called Onil: General Mackenzie however, moving out by the left of Castalla with four battalions and eight guns, followed the enemy without orders.