Nearly 40 years ago I was staying with my father in Hyderabad in what had, in the days of the princely state, been the Nizam's guest house. The functionary who was in charge of this establishment was, appropriately enough, known as 'In Charge', and the night before we left he made the familiar request to my father to find his son a university place in England. He assured us that he had 'very, very good qualifications', and half the night we heard the ancient typewriter clacking away as the boy set them out for us. We expected to see lists of exam successes; instead the CV began, 'My great-great-grandfather remained loyal to the British in 1857, and fought with them at the siege of - and the attack on -'. Appended were fragile letters on yellowing paper by long dead colonels commending Lance Naik Faiz Ullah for his conduct in battles now forgotten but once household names. These were the 'very, very good qualifications' which it was assumed would ensure a university place for the Lance Naik's descendant. It made that hot, dusty conflict seem surprisingly close, and indeed it is one of the incidents of history which springs most vividly to life in our minds. Perhaps this is because so many of those caught up in the ghastly events of the Indian Mutiny kept diaries or wrote personal accounts afterwards. Many of them were civilians, so we are given fascinating intimate touches by people who were snatched, totally without warning, out of their comfortable, pampered lives, and thrust into dangers and hardships almost beyond imagination.

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