"Form up quietly and steadily. We
have beaten the enemy before, you know, and we will do so again."
While the troops, in spite of the artillery fire, fell into line,
Clive rapidly surveyed the ground. He saw the enemy's infantry
advancing up the watercourse, and so sheltered by it as to be out of
the fire of his troops. He saw their cavalry sweeping down on the
other side of the watercourse, menacing his left and threatening his
baggage. The guns were at once brought up from the rear, but before
these arrived the men were falling fast.
Three of the guns he placed to answer the French battery, two of them
he hurried to his left, with a small body of English and two hundred
Sepoys, to check the advance of the enemy's cavalry. The main body of
his infantry he ordered into the watercourse, which afforded them a
shelter from the enemy's artillery. The baggage carts and baggage he
sent half a mile to the rear, under the protection of forty Sepoys and
a gun.
While this was being done the enemy's fire was continuing, but his
infantry advanced but slowly, and had not reached a point abreast of
the grove when the British force in the watercourse met them. It would
not seem to be a very important matter, at what point in the
watercourse the infantry of the two opposing parties came into
collision, but matters apparently trifling in themselves often decide
the fate of battles; and, in fact, had the French artillery retained
their fire until their infantry were abreast of the grove, the battle
of Kavaripak would have been won by them, and the British power in
Southern India would have been destroyed.
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