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The author had an extraordinary piece of luck a few years ago when he
was emailed by a couple who wished to dispose of a skull they had
inherited from a former landlord of The Lord Clyde in Walmer. The
skull had been discovered in a lumber room at the pub in 1963, missing
its lower jaw and most of its teeth. It was not anonymous however,
because inserted in the eye socket was a scrap of paper relating that it
was the skull of Havildar Alum Bheg, of the 46th Bengal Native
Infantry, 'a ruffianly rebel' who had been blown from the mouth of a
cannon after the Indian Mutiny. Dr Wagner, a colonial historian
teaching in London had been contacted because the skull's owners did
not feel comfortable with it, yet did not know how to dispose of it. To
his credit, Wagner not only took ownership of the relic but quickly
turned it into a cracking good story - a story of a little-known episode
of the Mutiny, of how it affected the new cantonment of Sealkot in the
Punjab, of the ambivalence of the rebels themselves and of colonial
violence in general, both Indian and British.
Many previously unconsidered themes are explored here, in particular
the fact that soldiers of the 46th regiment stationed in the Punjab, were
as much foreigners there as the British themselves. The majority came
from Awadh, a thousand miles away, unable to speak the local
language, different in looks, customs and behaviour from the local
Punjabis and with the dream of retiring 'home' at the end of a lifetime's
service in what was to them a foreign country. Although so far from
their native villages, they were not unaware of the turmoil at
Barrackpore, Meerut, and Delhi and although only a small number of
Britons were killed at Sealkot, their murderers were vigorously hunted
down and punished. Using original material including letters from
British civilians and American missionaries, the story is deftly told and
the 'greased cartridges' given a thorough examination. (Sepoys were
not in fact forced to use the unclean cartridges, but it was the fear of
losing caste and being polluted that was the more powerful element.)
The practice of taking human trophies, like skulls, by Victorian soldiers
is considered, although with a little too much extraneous material.
There are signs of over-hasty publication too, with a number of errors,
including the separation of the captions from the illustrations, but it is
nevertheless a lively and provocative book. Recommended.
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