Soldier Sahibs

Description

This text retells the story of a brotherhood of young men who together laid claim to one of the most notorious frontiers in the world: India's north-west frontier, which in the late 1990s forms the volatile boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Known collectively as Henry Lawrence's Young Men, each had distinguished himself in the East India Company's wars in the Punjab in the 1840s before going out to carve out names for themselves as politicals on the frontier. Drawing extensively on the men's diaries, journals and letters, Charles Allen weaves the individual stories of these Soldier Sahibs together with the tale of how they came together to save British India, ending climatically on Delhi Ridge in 1857.

Charles Allen was born in India, where six generations of his family served under the British Raj. After being educated in England, he returned to the Indian sub-continent in 1966 to work with Voluntary Service Overseas in Nepal. He ended his service with a long walk through the Himalayas that won him the Sunday Telegraph Traveller of the year trophy in 1967. Since then he has trekked and climbed extensively in the Himalayas and in other corners of the world. He is the author of many highly acclaimed books.