Webbe turned his head and stared out of the window for a while. Below the building stretched the warehouses of the East India Company and the bungalows of its managers and their families, basking peacefully in the sunshine of a clear sky. He turned back to Arthur with a resigned expression. ‘Very well, Colonel. I’ll do what I can to help you.’

With the Military Board behind him Arthur was able to put together the siege train, and by the end of the year the heavy artillery was sent forward to Vellore with twelve hundred rounds for each gun. As Arthur carried out the assembling of the train he soon discovered that his fellow staff officers were men of high calibre. Barry Close proved to be a mine of useful information about the terrain the guns would have to be moved over, while Henry Ashton deployed great charm and tact when dealing with civilian officials and senior officers in order to obtain what he and the other staff officers needed. If Ashton had a fault, it was his tendency to treat subordinates with studied indifference.

‘Look here, Arthur,’ he fumed one day as they sat in their office. He was brandishing a letter. ‘Here I am trying to prepare the army for war and two witless officers in the 12th are stirring up trouble to waste my time.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Arthur asked patiently, looking up from the requisition form he was completing.

‘One of my lieutenants is registering an official complaint against Major Allen, my quartermaster, for billing him for equipment he has not received. Apparently it’s caused quite a lot of fuss at Arnee and now the bloody major has asked me to intervene. Christ, as if I hadn’t got enough to deal with.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Do?’ Ashton snorted. ‘Nothing. I will tell Allen to leave me alone and sort it out himself, or if he can’t, to find someone more competent to do the job for him.’

Arthur lowered his pen and stared at Ashton. ‘Good God, you can’t say that to him. Certainly not in those terms.’

‘Why not? It’s true. He should not be bothering me with such trivialities.’ Ashton plucked out a fresh sheet of paper and began to compose his response. Arthur watched him for a moment, then shook his head and turned his attention back to the requisition form.

A few weeks later, at the end of November, Ashton was ordered to leave Madras to take up temporary command of the army forming up around Arnee. As he said his farewells to the staff at Fort St George Arthur regarded him with a touch of envy. Ashton would have the chance to take command of an army while Arthur remained behind in Madras dealing with paperwork.