Poet Under a Soldier's Hat

One hundred years of colonial rule in British India, 1850-1947, through the personal stories of one family.

Caught in two World Wars, pre-Mutiny skirmishes, and the Great Sepoy Rebellion - the true saga of lives not so "pukkha" as might be supposed. Hugh Rose's backstory exposes child marriage, social taboos, and adulterous affairs over many summers in a Himalayan Hill Station, and illegitimate pregnancies and banishment to England. More a poet than a soldier, Hugh, a British Officer of the Raj, serves with the 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles in the Kyber Pass bordering the North-West Frontier Afghanistan. Gentlemen's sports, bandits, tribal warlords, missionaries, ordinary men, and ghosts are not enough. Bored, Hugh seconds to the Political and Foreign Service in Arabia, Persia, and Waziristan. Until disgraced, he is "invited" to return to his regiment after five years. A naked Colonel's dictum "conformity kills" guides Hugh's adventurous life. Partition frees both India and Hugh.

©2013, 2015 Elizabeth Rose (P)2018 Elizabeth Rose