Babanango Trilogy - Part 1
A Rougher Task
by DJG Palmer
Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
344 Pages, 2024
What was the main reason for Britons joining the Army during the Victorian Era? Was it just patriotism or poverty? Who is a sapper and who is an officer? Why did the British invade Africa and Asia? DJG Palmer answers this and more in his part 1 of his trilogy, A Rougher Task.
Albert Bond finds himself penniless and friendless as his father dies while doing business and leaves him in debt which he repays by having to sell off everything he has including the golden pocket watch his parents presented him with for his 21st birthday. He plans to marry Clara who is the daughter of a retired Colonel but he doesn't have a respectable income. So he hopes to seek his fortune by joining the Army after due training at the Royal Military Academy just as Clara's father and his maternal Uncle Captain AW McGonagle.
As a gentleman officer, he is required to have a batman/sapper and he is lucky it is Jack Coleman who is a good looking, dutiful chap who has joined the Army because of poverty. However Bond is not too fond of his maternal uncle who has done a tour of India and now lives in Africa as his reputation in the Army is that of a maniac that Bond hides his correspondence with him so as not ruin his own reputation.
Bond and Coleman get on well despite their difference in class and rank. When their company is sent off to South Africa, so that they can fight the Zulus, they all get excited as they leave Chatham in 1878. It made me laugh that the Queen's regulations for a ship traveling to either Africa or India meant - a horse had 125 cubic feet of space while an officer had 175 and they stuck to it loyally. If two officers shared a cabin, then it was 275 cubic ft. while a sapper had only 50 ft. Some stuff like this are crazy and hilarious at the same time.
This book is all over the place as it is the first part introducing too many characters but is mostly about the brewing bromance between Bond and Coleman. There is the battle with Zulus which for the first time though fiction is an honest account, actually shows how scared and disorganised the British were when they fought, how terrified they were of Zulus when they first met them in the battle field which Brits would have lost but for their superior weaponry, etc. The McGonagle monologue might be okay for someone like me in India who knows about the sepoy mutiny but can be confusing for most people.
For those who are interested in history, colonialism and war strategy - this would be a great read.
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