I Read Books: The Sabre's Edge

The Sabre’s Edge

Mathew Hervey is still in India and the British are still at war with Burma. He’s a cavalry officer and the amphibious expedition to attack Rangoon has no cavalry element, so he gets himself on the staff as assistant military secretary to the general. He obviously gets into the fighting. The Burmese keep building stockades and forts which have to be captured to allow the ships up the river, so it looks to be a long slow campaign; worse still they waited for the rains so the channel is fuller, but that means everything is flooded and soaked. Hervey manages to get himself wounded and evacuated.

This has a couple of silver linings. Firstly he doesn’t die of disease like a lot of the army in that campaign. Secondly it means he’s available when things start to go south in Bhutpore, as the old king is dying and his young son is usurped. It was the scene of Lord Lake’s defeat previously, and in fact they built a tower of skulls to celebrate that. Hervey has done some reconnaissance and so has some daring ideas of how to actually win the siege this time.

There’s more; he has a very unsatisfactory junior officer under him who he tries to bring up to speed, failing at every turn. His troop sergeant-major, a former miner, has some useful ideas on how to undermine the walls. And there’s the opportunity for advancement. Again. And again there’s a downside.

Read This: For a bit of 19th century military adventure
Don’t Read This: Though the situation is nuanced, in the end this is a colonial adventure