WITH KELLY TO CHITRAL

Written by a junior participating officer, this is a vivid account of the everyday life of British officers and their Indian troops on a frontier expedition in India in the 1890s. In the author’s own words, rather than ‘exciting adventures of heroic deeds’ his account speaks of ‘How we lived and marched, what we ate and drank, our small jokes and trials, our marches through snow or rain, hot valleys or pleasant fields’. The Chitral expedition, led by Colonel Kelly, on whose staff Beynon served, successfully relieved a British garrison beset by rebellious tribesmen on the always turbulent north-west frontier. Beynon gives a lively account of military life in turn-of-the-century British India.