by John Wilcox
I have done my best to relate the main manoeuvres and battles of the Revolt as accurately as a reading of respected accounts of the time allowed. The Viceroy at the time, for instance, did send a letter to Kabul begging the Amir not to intervene in the Revolt. And the Swats at Malakand, did try to tempt their Afridis cousins to join them on the other side of the abbatis and were shot for their audacity.
Fonthill et al. had to leave Lockhart at Maidan, otherwise this book would never have been finished. But the general’s apprehension about problems in ‘tidying up’ in the Tirah were well founded. The Afridis fought up until and into the winter, harassing the British as they tried to pull out as the snow began. Eventually, there was a conclusion of sorts. But it was virtually a truce only, for intermittent fighting continued until, until … well the present day.
On the very morning that I typed in the magic words ‘The End’, the news came through that three Scottish soldiers had been killed by Taleban insurgents in Helmund Province, not so far from where, 116 years before, their fellow Scots, the Gordons, had made their magnificent ascent of Dargai. In both cases, the soldiers were fighting jihadists. Plus ça change …
It’s enough to make you weep, though, is it not?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Once again it is a pleasant duty to acknowledge the help of the staff at London Library in researching this book; the constant support and encouragement of my agent, Jane Conway-Gordon; the work of Susie Dunlop and her staff at my publishers Allison & Busby – surely the most willing and delightful bunch of girls in British publishing! – and, as ever, my wife Betty, research assistant, proofreader and loving and constant supplier of tea and coffee.
The Pathan Revolt is rather tucked away in the annals of the British Empire and I found comparatively few books of merit written about it. The following, however, were of great help:
The Frontier Ablaze, by Michael Barthorp, Windrow & Green, London, 1996 (particularly good on maps and geography).
The Savage Border, by Jules Stewart, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2007.
My Early Life, by Winston Churchill, published (paperback), Scribner, 1997.
The Colonial Wars Source Book by Phillip J. Hawthornthwaite, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1995.
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About the Author
According to author John Wilcox, an inability to do sums and a nascent talent for stringing words together steered him towards journalism – that and the desire to wear a trench coat, belted with a knot, just like Bogart. After an award-winning career as a journalist, he was lured into industry. In the mid-nineties he sold his company in order to devote himself to his first love, writing. He has now published ten novels in the highly acclaimed Simon Fonthill series, as well as two works of non-fiction.
www.johnwilcoxauthor.co.uk
By John Wilcox
The War of the Dragon Lady
Fire Across the Veldt
Bayonets Along the Border
Starshine
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2014.
This ebook edition first published in 2014.
Copyright © 2014 by JOHN WILCOX
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1406–3