Sahib - The British Soldier in India

Sahib - The British Soldier in India

by Richard Holmes Harper Perennial, $144

Sahib is the 19th-century chapter that completes Richard Holmes' trilogy about the life of the British foot soldier - Red Coats covered the 18th century and Tommies the 20th. He begins with Robert Clive's conquests (and failed suicide when his gun jams) and ends with the first world war. Again, he lets the many literate and observant soldiers describe how they lived, travelled, fought and died. Mortality from cholera for Europeans was 69 in 1,000. Holmes inhabits Sahib, the address used for European men, with an extraordinary cast of characters whose stories are often ignored in the view of the Raj as colonial exploitation. That India, with some 300 million people, was securely governed in 1901 by a British contingent of 154,000, including dependants, is extraordinary. Holmes declines to judge his soldiers, who were products of their time. The treasure here is some truly bizarre stories. At the Shepur garrison besieged by Afghans in 1880, amid the dead and wounded, and the smoke and clamour of cannon and musket, Fred Roberts' head bearer, Eli Bux, approaches to announce that the Sahib's bath is ready.