Arthur smiled at the thought one morning in late February, when he rode out to find one of his battalions formed up on frozen ground. A thick frost coated the surrounding trees and hedges with gleaming white against a backdrop of a pale grey sky.This morning the men had been joined by a commissariat wagon loaded with boxes of cartridges and Arthur gave orders for each man to be issued with twenty rounds. He was well aware that the penny-pinching officials of the War Office frowned upon live fire practices since the cost of the powder and balls discharged was considerable. But Arthur well knew that men who were familiar with the din of firing and the rolling clouds of stinking smoke on the training ground were far less likely to be perturbed by musket fire when it happened on the battlefield.

The prospect of live fire practice lifted the mood as the battalion went on to form column a half-mile from a long low hedge that bordered a little-used turnpike.When the men were ready the order was given to advance on the hedge and the column rippled forward. As the front rank closed to within a hundred paces of the hedge Arthur abruptly reined in his horse and bellowed, ‘Form line!’

The orders were repeated and the redcoat companies tramped out at an angle across the frost-gilded meadow until the senior sergeants reached their positions and lowered their pikes to indicate the line along which the following ranks were to form. As the last men stepped into place on the gently rolling pastureland Arthur snapped his watch shut and trotted over to where the lieutenant-colonel of the battalion stood a short distance ahead of the colours.

‘Chambers, that took your men a shade under three minutes. If you can’t do it in two, a Frenchie column will be upon you before your men can fire a single volley.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Colonel Chambers took the rebuke stolidly, and stared to the front. ‘I will attend to my men’s timing, sir.’

‘See that you do. Now then.’ Arthur looked up and indicated the brow of a hill half a mile away. ‘Let’s assume your men have just fought off a French column.You have just sighted a regiment of cuirassiers over there.What do you do?’

‘Sir?’ Chambers glanced at the hill. ‘I don’t understand.’

Arthur spoke evenly.‘Use your imagination, man.That hill is covered in cuirassiers. Except by now they have gained at least a hundred yards on you. So what do you do?’ Arthur pulled out his watch again and thumbed open the cover. ‘Well?’

Chambers immediately took a deep breath and roared,‘Battalion will form square and prepare to receive cavalry!’

Once again, Arthur kept an eye on his watch as the companies steadily folded back from the wings and formed a square three men deep, the front rank kneeling with their muskets braced against their boots so that the bayonets pointed up and out, creating a deadly obstacle that few horses would dare to hurl themselves at.