Customer Reviews

Bugles and a Tiger (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

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John Masters writes of his early life and the beginning of his career in the Indian Army, particularly a Gurkha regiment.
In this fast-moving book, he manages to explain the viewpoint of the families whose lives for generations were involved in service in India (by extension in less well-known outposts of empire, as well), explain the British regimental system, the institution of Sandhurst, a good view of pre-war India, a fabulously affectionate description of the Gurkha soldiers, and fighting on the Northwest Frontier. Those familiar with Kipling, or current events, will recognize some of the locations.
None of this strikes the reader as a lecture. If nothing else, this book will inform the reader about several subjects which will make understanding certain aspects of history and military affairs much easier.
Masters was clearly an interesting young man; observant and energetic, self-aware, and clearly competent.
The story ends with a large manuver involving several other units. After a night march over nearly impossible terrain, the battalion is in place, supple, tuned, ready. The year is 1939.

Masters' next book, "Road Past Mandalay" about his experiences fighting in Burma, follows naturally and seamlessly.

Author John Masters turned to fiction after a successful career in the British Empire's old Indian Army. Bugles and a Tiger recounts Master's army years up until World War 2, from military academy days at Sandhurst through service with the famed Gurkhas. The responsibilities of company command mature Masters, until he becomes ready for the greater responsibility thrust upon him in World War 2 . (See The Road Past Mandalay for that story).
Bugles and a Tiger is a warm, thought-provoking, and entertaining look back at a time and place that seem exotic by today's standards. Highly recommended for all, especially those who have an interest in history, India, or a good old-fashioned "ripping yarn".

This is my favorite military memoir ever. John Masters served as a young Gurkha officer in the twilight of British India shortly before World War 2.
Written in middle age, the memoir tells how Masters grew from cadet to company commander in an Indian Army Gurkha regiment. It's a universal coming of age story enlivened by exotic locales, an attractive protagonist,and and a loving eye for a way of life that was known to be ending while it was being lived.
Masters is a natural storyteller and parts of this book linger in the memory long after it is finished. Master's World War 2 years are also ably described in the sequel, " The Road Past Mandalay". Of the two, I prefer the first: some of Master's WW2 experiences were grim indeed, and the second book is less light-hearted as a consequence.

John Masters was a soldier before he became a best-selling novelist. He went to Sandhurst in 1933 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.

'Bugles and a Tiger' is a matchless evocation of the British/Indian Army in India on the eve of the Second World War. 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' became the first of three volumes of autobiography that touched a chord in the post-war world. Many veterans wrote to him, thanking him 'for saying something that had not been said and needed saying, for drawing this picture of a worthwhile service, the old Indian Army'.

Well worth reading, as is the subsequent book, "The Road to Mandalay."

I had read this before and thought it might have insights for today's problems in the AfPak region. And boy, does it!!

It's amazing how much has not changed in that region. Too bad George W Bush and his buddies didn't know some of this before we got so imbroiled in the area.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This book, an account of a British officer's tour in the late 1930's with an Indian Gurkha unit on the Afgan border (pre-establishment of Pakistan) could be culled from today's headlines. The similarities of actions happening today is striking. Today's military leaders should be required to read this book.

Although it could be described as a romantic account of a coming of age, Masters does not coat the events with over much sugar. What he does reveal is the futility of much of the British effort to control the various tribes inhabiting the NW Frontier areas. One hopes that this lesson could be taught at West Point. It does not seem to have gotten assimilated anywhere else.
As a prelude to Masters novels about India it makes a great reading, and presents a not overly sentimental account of a way of life now long gone. The account of the "fishing fleet" of young English ladies who sailed out to India in the hopes of meeting a young subaltern for marriage, and the appalling conditions in which they lived and pretended to be in the suburbs of London, is both honest and hilarious.