This indeed was Hervey’s intention, mindful too of what the Prussian said was the most powerful device in the art of war: surprise. And that consisted in ‘opposing the enemy with a great many more troops than he expected at some particular point so that the actual superiority in numbers becomes suddenly of little – or certainly lesser – importance’. (Really, it was nothing that a common captain didn’t know – one at least with five years in the field against the French – but ne’er so well expressed.) Colonel Dennie had therefore agreed that winning a couple of hours more by marching at once might save blood; and Colonel Maclean had agreed to dividing his dragoons – vexing though it was – to make a demonstration against the rear of both positions, the river and the stockade, and likewise to march before sunset. Major Garratt had needed little persuading to have his two squadrons re-saddle at once and clear and mark the route for them. So that only the reserve, the Nizam’s contingent, would march after last light – a good two hours after – for there was nothing more trying for cavalry, even when horses were led, than to be slowed by infantry ahead of them; just as there was nothing more trying for infantry than to march over ground roiled by more horseshoes than was unavoidable.

The moon set just after three and Hervey’s orders had been for commanding officers to judge the condition of their men at that point and to rest until dawn unless they thought there was advantage in pressing on in what would then be Stygian darkness.

At three o’clock, therefore, in the last guttering moonlight, the Somersets had lain down in column of route and slept. Dennie, at their head, had looked though his telescope with satisfaction at the distant watch fires of Chintalpore – a mile and a half, perhaps two. Thirteen miles they’d covered, in eight hours. It was hardly the pace Sir John Moore (of blessèd memory) had set at Hythe when he trained the first regiments of light infantry, but then he, Dennie, had at least kept his battalion in one piece and good order; and when the sun came up again they’d march off briskly in column of companies – and, as he told his captains, ‘We shall shock them!’

The Thirteenth, with Colonel Maclean at their head, marching dismounted for all but the last hours of daylight, had made rapid progress too, reaching their objectives, the two debouches (to their surprise, not picketed), with the moon still up to light their bivouac. Maclean had sent word to Hervey by galloper – ‘The corks are in the bottle.’

The Sixth, meanwhile, their marker work done with the passing of the Somersets, had also been able to rally by moonlight, under the direction of Armstrong’s blue-glass lantern, off-saddling for three hours’ rest till stand-to at first light. Theirs then would be to screen the Somersets as they alternately quick- and double-marched to Chintalpore. (‘Same as herding cattle’, the dragoons joked; or even sheep, said some, but slower.)