A rare personal acount of an ordinary British private soldier’s service in India – covering campaigns against the Afghans and the Sikhs., including the siege of Mooltan.
Written after the author had retired from the army into the ranks of the Leicestershire Police, this is a rare worm’s eye view of British military service in India in the mid-19th century. John Ryder was an illiterate working man when he took the queen’s shilling ( he learned to read and write in the army) but, as the editor of his memoirs patronisingly writes ‘though ungrammatical, the bright ore gleamed through the rough earth in which [the manuscript] was encrusted’. The book is indeed a vividly rough and ready acount of the author’s Indian military service, including honest accounts of atrocities ( some by British troops); military actions including the siege of Mooltan; as well as the more ordinary trials and tribulations in the heat and dust of India. An eye-opening account of great value to all those who want a taste of the sweaty reality at the sharp end of life in the armed service of the East India Company.