Julian Rathbone’s novel dramatises the bloody events of the Indian Mutiny with the authority that his readers have come to expect. From the opening chapters, which describe the British colony in Simla in the early 1850s, every detail is precisely caught, and every nuance of behaviour, British and Indian, set in its
historical context. Thus, the fact that most marriages among the British upper classes are contracted for expediency, not love, is treated as a matter of course, while the idea that a woman might want to keep her children with her, instead of sending them away to be brought up in England, is not.
The loveless marriage in question is between Sophie and Tom Hardcastle, a captain in a regiment stationed in northern India. We see one section of the story through Sophie’s eyes, and another from the point of view of Catherine Dixon, also married to a serving officer, and whose devotion to her children will have terrible consequences. The masculine perspective is given by the dashing Bruce Farquhar, a maverick officer who travels about the country in Indian garb.
These and other characters - some real, some invented - add human interest to a panoramic tale, whose tragic momentum is powerfully conveyed. If there are times when it reads more like a history book than a work of fiction, these are offset by some fine set-piece passages - notably a graphic account of the massacre at Cawnpore.
The Mutiny, by Julian Rathbone
Abacus, £7.99