‘Can’t I?’ Arthur thought back to his first campaign in the lowlands. Half of his men had died from want of food and the bitter cold of a terrible winter. Then there had been India, and the long marches through searing heat before taking on armies vastly superior in size and beating them. He fixed his eyes on the other man and cleared his throat. ‘I am sure that if you were in full possession of the facts, you would not judge the contribution of the army so harshly.’

Jardine shook his head briefly. ‘I am not being harsh. Forgive me if I appear to be. I merely point to the record of both services. On the seas our sailors have completely mastered the enemy, whereas our soldiers are no match for the French and have failed to secure the least foothold on the continent. Instead of taking the fight directly to the enemy they are merely nibbling away at his colonies, far from the heart of the struggle.’

‘It is hardly the fault of the soldiers if the government chooses to deploy them in such a fashion,’ Arthur protested.

‘Precisely, sir.Take yourself.’ Jardine gestured towards Arthur’s tanned face. ‘From your colour, I assume that you have been on service in the tropics, or some such?’

‘I have just returned from India.’

‘And what did you do there of any importance to this country?’

Arthur took a deep breath.The question was startling in terms of the breadth of the answer he could provide, but Jardine continued before he had a chance to begin.

‘I warrant that you and your men spent most of the time chasing the natives off the property of the East India Company.’

‘We achieved more than that, sir. It is thanks to the efforts of the army that Britain now rules over lands many times the size and population of the British Isles.’

‘India is a mere detail of our struggle against France,’ Jardine countered dismissively. ‘Besides, you were fighting savages, not proper civilised armies. How could you possibly lose in such an unequal contest?’

Arthur leaned back with a weary expression. The man was clearly ignorant of the campaigns that had been fought across the heart of the subcontinent over the last decade. He knew nothing of the bloody assault on the Sultan of Mysore’s fortress capital of Seringapatam. Nothing of the desperate march across the face of the vast Mahratta army at Assaye to attack their flank and defeat them. Nothing of the bold advance against the cannon and massed ranks of the enemy at Argaum. Nothing of the long months of bitter skirmishes with the bandit columns led by the bloodthirsty Dhoondiah Waugh. Clearly, the exploits of Arthur and his men had been overlooked back home in Britain. Almost as if they were a forgotten army led by a forgotten general. He sighed.