Vere ordered his engineers to get on the breach to rapidly throw up a small breast work, driving in palisades. The Archduke fired a gun as a signal to Bucquoy, and the besiegers rushed to the assault from all points just as the darkness of night set in. Vere's engineers immediately discovered Count Farnese wading across with his 2,000 Italians, and drawing them up in battalions on the Ostend side. Vere then went to the top of the "Sandhill" and issued orders to have everything in readiness, but not to fire until he gave the signal, and then to open with both ordnance and small shot.