SOLDIER IN INDIA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 895, 28 September 1956, Page 13

SOLDIER IN INDIA

BUGLES AND A TIGER, by John Masters; Michael Joseph; English price 16/-. HE tendency to regard the Indian Army as something rather funny, deriving its origin perhaps from the choleric eccentricities of retired AngloIndian~colonels, was at its height in the early nineteen-thirties, when soldiers were regarded by a people bent on renouncing war as parasites on the community. Since those days adversity has brought about a change of opinion, and with Britain’s retreat from imperialism, the Indian Army that Colonel Masters knew has passed away. The possibility that it was not quite such a comic affair as was sometimes supposed will no doubt occur to the reader of this very interesting book. Bugles and a Tiger is a narrative of events that would not be readily intelligible without some description of the background of an Indian Army. officer’s life. We should be at a loss without some knowledge of the economy of a Ghurka regiment; of how the NorthWest Frontier Province was administered, or of how cadets live and work at the Royal Military College. Sand-

hurst. All these gaps in our understanding are filled in by Colonel Masters, whose prose, even in its sternest passages, is enlivened by a fund of anecdote that never fails, whether he writes, of frontier campaigns, tiger hunts, manoeuvres, or orgies that might have shocked a Regency rake. His many adventures are sometimes _ thrilling, sometimes comic, and occasionally contain an element of both. (Here surely is subject matter for future novels after the style of Bhowani Junction.) But the recurring theme of this memoir is a tribute of admiration to "the stubborn and indomitable peasants of Nepaul," whom Masters commanded. Of the many stories of their courage, humour, and devotion there is only space here to include one. In 1940, a Ghurka regiment, was called upon for one hundred volunteers to train as parachutists. It was explained to the men that the jumps would be made at first from the height of a mere thousand feet, but only seventy volunteers were forthcoming. Deeply disappointed, the British officers explained once again that parachutes hardly ever failed to open, and described the various devices for ensuring that they did so. Suddenly the face of the Ghurkas’ spokesman cleared, "and, speaking for all, he said, ‘Oh, we jump with these parachutes, do we? That’s different. "

R. M.

Burdon