The parallel could not extend to the right, however, as two powerful British outer works blocked the way: Redoubts 9 and 10. These needed to be taken.
Siege work was slow and deliberate. Engineers worked with spades and mattocks to throw up earthworks as others constructed wooden platforms for artillery pieces. Artillerymen heaved the massive guns into place and opened fire. There was little, at this point, for the infantry to do other than wait it out and listen to the thunder of the guns of both sides. Major General The Marquis de Lafayette communicated this frustration to French foreign minister de La Luzerne: “The troops of both nations chafe at the slowness of the approach works and ask permission to shorten the time by taking this point or that with drawn swords, but the general, who knows his success is assured, determined to conserve the blood of his troops.”
Le Marquis de Lafayette, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution—Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790: April 1, 1781–December 23, 1781 (United States: Cornell University Press, 2018), 416