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FREE BUGLES AND A TIGER: MY LIFE IN THE GURKHAS PDF John Masters | 320 pages | 01 Jan 2002 | Orion Publishing Co | 9780304361564 | English | London, United Kingdom Bugles and a Tiger: My life in the Gurkhas by John Masters (Paperback, ) for sale online | eBay Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Bugles and a Tiger by John Masters. John Masters was a soldier before he became a bestselling novelist. He went to Sandhurst in at the age of eighteen and was commissioned into the 4th Gurkha Rifles in time to take part in some of the last campaigns on the turbulent north-west frontier of India. John Masters joined a Gurhka regiment on receiving his commission, and his depiction of garrison life and cam John Masters was a soldier before he became a bestselling novelist. John Masters joined a Gurhka regiment on receiving his commission, and his depiction of garrison life and campaigning on the North-West Frontier has never been surpassed. Still very much the army depicted by Kipling, it stands on the threshold of a war that will transform the world. Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas book is the first of three volumes of autobiography that touched a chord in the post-war world. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published January 1st by Orion Publishing Group first published More Details Original Title. Masters Autobiography Trilogy 1. Other Editions 7. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas questions about Bugles and a Tigerplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Gurkhas came to northern India from Nepal. After the Anglo-Nepalese War ofthe East India Company recognized their fighting mettle and initiated regular recruitment for service with the colonial army, a tradition continued when the Brits instituted government control of the Raj under a Viceroy after the Sepoy Revolt. These legendary regiments of Gurkhas keep showing up in hot spots in my reading of British military campaigns, such as in Africa and Gallipoli battles in WW1 and, in WW2, in tough battles in North Africa and sometimes alongside Lawrence of Arabia in the Middle East. Masters comes off as quite lonely through his youth and early career, speaking very little of family or friends. By tradition, children of colonial military families are sent back to the mother ship for schooling to be instilled with the proper class consciousness, moral deportment, and loyalty to the empire. Awkward and shy, he took to literature for escape and achievement in the Wellington Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas school and at Sandhurst used his smarts to compensate for modest physical prowess and manly grit. When it came time to pick a permanent placement, he already knew he wanted to serve with an Indian regiment instead of a regular British unit. I was charmed by his regard and respect for these people: Though there are, of course, exceptions, the distinguishing marks of the Gurkha are usually a Mongolian appearance, short stature, a merry disposition, and an indefinable quality that is hard to pin down with one word. Straightness, honesty, naturalness, loyalty, courage—all these are near it, but none is quite right, for the quality embraces all of these. Desertions were unheard of …There were no excuses, no grumbling, no shirking, no lying. There was no intrigue, no apple-polishing, and no servility. The perfect man—or, at the least, the perfect soldier? Not quite. The Gurkha was slow at book-learning, and he liked gambling, rum, and women; and, in his own home, he was apt to be unkempt. But these large generalizations are vague and patronizing. It is impossible to give an idea of the Gurkha by such mean, because each Gurkha is a separate man. He seems to be born with the ability to see the heart of a problem regardless of distracting circumstances, red herrings, or conflicting advice. He does not think, cogitate—he will tell you shyly that he is not clever enough for that—but he bends facts, arguments, and logic to fit what he somehow knows is right. Masters is aware of the potential of contributing to a whitewash of the inequities of British colonialism. For most of his tour, his regiment served in the North West Frontier region now Pakistan adjacent to Afghanistan with a duty mainly to quell tribal conflicts and bandit raids across the border. After experiencing their merciless practice of torturing, killing, and mutilation of captives, Masters suggests that examples of payback brutality were not uncommon. The hit and run guerilla tactics of their foe was hard to counter. As with so many armies that have faced rebels in these mountainous regions from Alexander on down, the limitations of traditional ways of waging war go out the window. A saving grace of the narrative is plenty of self- deprecation and comic interludes. He also provides plenty of examples of the Gurkha sense of humor. The memory of these ungainly beasts, starting forward, the expression on their faces changing from pompous omniscience to alarmed outrage, has often made me wish to introduce Dhansing among a roomful of literary critics. I am sure he would see the resemblance. All along the way in this tale there are some colorful or comic adaptations of British officers to the limited access to appropriate women. With so few British officers with wives in residence, the taboo against adultery gets regularly assailed. Ours was a one-sexed society, with the women hanging on to the edges. Married or unmarried, their status was really that of camp followers. And a few homosexuals followed their secret star with comparative comfort in that large and easy-going country, where there are so many sins that there is no sin, except inhospitality. Throughout this read I wondered what the proper level Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas sympathy I should be feeling for Masters, who Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas all was acting as the instrument of imperialism. As with Kipling, I recognize his love of the place and the people and appreciate his art in conveying them in a multidimensional portrait. Wiki tells me that Masters was sometimes defensive about having Indian blood and later had to accommodate to the discovery that it was true. View all 9 comments. It's Lost Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas in reading about the military elements again Recommend for readers interested in subject area. India-historys Suggest reading some of the following quotes for the travel flavor. In years gone by, Masters' novels were among those that provided my perspective on India. Readers of the new historical fiction series set in India by Mukherjee might appreciate the India Masters reveals in Bugles Need to return ILL before ordering another. These mountains extend four hundred miles from the Khyber Pass in the north to the Bolan Pass in the deserts of Baluchistan to the south. They are raw and bare, and a proudly independent people lives in them. These people, Semitic in origin, Moslem in religion, Pushtu in speech, are the Pathans. The name is pronounced 'P'tahn,' except by British soldiers, who use 'Paythan. Not only do different members of the same tribe live on opposite sides of the international boundary, but the Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas family or subtribe may own winter fields on the Indian side and summer grazing on the Afghan side. In all historical time the Pathans have kept themselves alive by a combination of nomad life, half-hearted tillage of the barren Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas, armed raids into the settled farmlands of the plains, and levying tolls on the commercial traffic that must use the few routes through their hills. The government actually administered the country as far as a line known as the Administrative Border. West of this, in a belt varying from ten to a hundred miles in Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas, was Tribal Territory. Here the Pathans could govern themselves as they Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas Here, on a plateau feet above sea level, secluded behind a triple circle of barbed wire and arc lights, had sprung up an unnatural town with a population of ten thousand men and three thousand mules At night, as we made our rounds of duty, the stars gleamed on the bayonets of the silent sentries along the wall. At dawn we awoke to the shrill, sweet call of the mountain artillery trumpets blowing a long reveille. I was determined to go to Bugles and a Tiger: My Life in the Gurkhas. The soldiers had to use oil on them, and any attempt to burn them clean with methylated spirits, as we had done at Sandhurst, would have ended in a court martial. Literally, I knew that where the blinding white road ended the narrow-gauge railway would begin. A little locomotive would chuff across the burning desert to the Indus at ten miles an hours. That train was called the Heatstroke Express, and it would rumble over the dark red girders of the Indus Bridge, and there on the other side would be the broad-gauge train.

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