‘Very good, General.’

Parry looked troubled. ‘General, with respect, leading the second line; you are commander of the field force. Oughtn’t the brigade to be—’

‘I’m obliged to you, Major Parry. There are two brigadiers in the event of mishap, and Lindesay the senior.’

‘Sir.’

Serjeant Acton smiled. He could have told him that himself.

‘Gallopers!’

Orders flew to the Nizams and the Somersets, and the guns, who cursed loudly at being made to unhook instead of going on with the Sixth.

Dennie’s men began forming square, the first time Hervey had seen a battalion do so since Waterloo. Once dressed, the order came to load with ball, and then ‘Fix bayonets!’

He touched his peak to them as he trotted by. ‘Stand-fast, Light Infantry; your time will come!’

Colonel Dennie raised his sword to the salute, then turned and ordered ‘Skirmishers out!’

In the far distance the host of ‘Pindaree’ horsemen at last made their appearance.

The Sixth were already forming two lines, with Gordon’s coming up on their left. Hervey placed himself centre and fifty yards to the rear, the second regiment of the Nizam’s trotting up in two ranks and halting a dozen lengths behind him. Armstrong saluted as he trotted past to take post at the rear of the Sixth’s second rank. Hervey touched the peak of his cap by return – no point now wondering if he’d heed his words (‘let others have their share of the shot’) – then drew his sword. He’d have drawn it at the head of the first line if he’d not had regard for what Parry had been at pains to remind him. Garratt was anyway capable of leading a charge, and the captains knew their business. The real decision lay in when and where to commit the supports. If all they faced were a thousand, he was sure the first line would break them, even just a few hundred sabres – if, that is, they drove in pell-mell and the Pindarees didn’t get their lance points down at too fast a pace. He’d just have to look out for trickery – a masked battery or some such (another thousand waiting in the wings, say). Then the supports would be decisive. It wasn’t likely, but he couldn’t entirely rule it out, no matter how sharp-eyed Worsley’s troop had been.

‘Draw swords!’

Garratt’s words of command brought three hundred sabres from their scabbards, blades flashing in the sunlight.

The Nizams, flank and rear, drew theirs, making eight hundred in all.

Hervey could see now that the Pindarees were halted, with a frontage of several hundred yards. If they chose now to advance they’d almost certainly overlap his line on the right, and possibly the left if the Nizams didn’t open out a little.

‘Walk-march!’

Garratt’s trumpeter sounded the order.

The line billowed forward.

Hervey’s followed.

Fifty yards on, and no move from the Pindarees.

‘Trot!’

The horses knew the trumpet call. Hooves began pounding the hard earth two-time.

With a nod to the commandant of the Nizams behind him, a brawny Deccani Mussulman, Hervey bid the supports follow.