In the fort, the utmost vigilance was observed. The garrison laboured to mend the breaches, and complete the preparations for defence. Provisions were again stored up, and they awaited anxiously news from Clive. That enterprising officer was at Fort Saint David, busy in making his preparations for a decisive campaign against the enemy round Trichinopoli, when the news of the rising reached him. He was expecting a considerable number of fresh troops from England, as it was in January that the majority of the reinforcements despatched by the Company arrived in India; and Mr. Saunders had written to Calcutta, begging that a hundred men might be sent thence. These were now, with the eighty men at Madras, and the two hundred at Arcot, all the force that could be at his disposal, for at Fort Saint David there was not a single available man. With all the efforts that Clive, aided by the authorities, could make, it was not until the middle of February that he had completed his arrangements. On the 9th, the hundred men arrived from Bengal, and, without the loss of a day, Clive started from Madras to form a junction with the garrison from Arcot, who, leaving only a small force to hold the fort, had moved down to meet him. Chapter 9: The Battle Of Kavaripak. The troops from Arcot had already moved some distance on their way to Madras, and Clive, therefore, with the new levies, joined them on the day after his leaving Madras. The French and Riza Sahib let slip the opportunity of attacking these bodies, before they united. They were well aware of their movements, and had resolved upon tactics, calculated in the first place to puzzle the English commander, to wear out his troops, and to enable them finally to surprise and take him entirely at a disadvantage. The junction with the Arcot garrison raised the force under Clive's orders to three hundred and eighty English, thirteen hundred Sepoys, and six field guns, while the enemy at Vendalur, a place twenty-five miles south of Madras, where they had a fortified camp, had four hundred French troops, two thousand Sepoys, two thousand five hundred cavalry, and twelve guns. Hoping to surprise them there, Clive marched all night. When the force approached the town they heard that the enemy had disappeared, and that they had started, apparently, in several directions.