This week we’re reading ‘The Road to Kalamata’ by “Mad” Mike Hoare. This is Hoare’s personal account of what it was like as a mercenary for the Katanga secessionists in the early 1960’s. Hoare exposes us to the logistical challenges, camaraderie, mortal ambivalence, and appeal of the mercenary life while dodging Baluba ambushes, escaping arrest by the U.N, and leading men through the Congo bush.

Between events, Hoare gives us some insight into his own thoughts. How he  understands the Katanga secession, the death of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, how the U.N peacekeeping forces are deployed and operated, among other musings.

Hoare writes in a muscular style that doesn’t try to do more than it should, and frames his memoir as a story. We are introduced to the men of his unit 4 Commando, their training regiment and mission, their trek from the training base to a strategic location, and their run in with the U.N Peacekeeping mission. While the U.N is trying to arrest 4 Commando two of his men, Simon Donaldson and Ted Mackay, are separated from the group and are lost in Baluba territory. The second half of the memoir is the story of how Hoare and Simon’s wealthy father search for Simon and Ted and eventually discover their death, both that it happened and it’s brutal manner.

This week we’re discussing the second half of Burmese Days by George Orwell.

The Tannerite has been lit and the explosion, rather than revealing the gender of a baby on the way, sends sharpnel of despair into the reader’s eyes.

For the first few chapters, Flory’s star is rising. He has made up with Elizabeth by going hunting with her. On their hunt Flory and Elizabeth encounter a leopard which they successfully slay. Elizabeth is overcome with emotional whimsey and expects Flory to ask for her hand in marriage before the week is up. This is for sensible reasons as well - to preclude a life of absolute poverty and escape the grasp of her lecherous Uncle. Elizabeth’s affection even gives Flory the courage to recommend Dr. Veraswami to the English Club, as a way to protect his friend from the machinations of U Po Kyin.

But wait, the dashing, polo-playing, horse riding Lieutenant Verrall arrives and sweeps Elizabeth off her feet. She discovers Flory’s “beastly” relationship with the Burmese woman Ma Hla May and her affections shift directions. But Verrall’s poise is only matched by his debts, and he leaves Kyauktada without a word to Elizabeth or to his creditors. Like the gentle Burmese breeze, Elizabeth’s attention now shifts back to Flory.

The “crocodile” U Po Kyin executes a dastardly plan and fomented a fake rebellion, with the idea that if U Po Kyin were to stop the rebellion he would gain favor with the English. This faux rebellion morphs into a real one after reprisals and counter-reprisals. Eventually, a mob of Burmese villagers show up at the English Club to take revenge on the scoundrel Ellis, but Flory saves the day by both dispersing the mob and avoiding any unnecessary death. U Po Kyin seems to have been foiled, Elizabeth is smitten with Flory, and all seems right with the world, or Flory’s world at least.

However, the crocodile has another snap left in him. U Po Kyin recruits Flory’s former mistress, Ma Hla May to demand money from Flory at a Sunday church service. Elizabeth in a characteristic fashion, responds with disgust towards Flory and rejects him once again. Flory makes his way home, shoots our most redeemable character, the dog Flo, and does himself in with a bullet to the chest.

This week we’re discussing the first half of Burmese Days by George Orwell.

The first half of the novel is an evocative, semi-autobiographical account of the man John Flory, an English timber merchant living in the Burmese imperial district of Kyauktada. Flory is a sensitive and depraved fellow, a person whose life did not play out exactly as he planned. Lacking other prospects, Flory secured a job at the timber company with the help of his parents, and was sent out to Burma in his early twenties. It has been fifteen years since that moment. He has not seen England since.

He is a man with no friends and no prospects for them. The English imperial agents with their racist bravado does not appeal to him, and true friendship with the subjected Burmese is socially impossible. The closest Flory gets is with the striving Indian doctor Veraswami. The doctor is a loyal British subject, advocating for imperial virtues where Flory refuses to. Veraswami is also being targeted by the corrupt deputy U Po Kyin whom Verawswami refers to as the crocodile.  Veraswami appeals to Flory for assistance in fending off U Po Kyin, but Flory’s cowardly behavior stops him from doing so.

The final chapters of this section introduce us to Elizabeth. She is the orphaned daughter of an overly optimistic businessman and a faux artist mother, coming to Kyauktada to live with her aunt and Uncle - Mr and Mrs. Lackersteen, two frequenters to the English Club. Flory falls for her almost immediately and hopes that she will be the friend and companion that he had been hoping for, but Elizabeth is perhaps more imperial than any of the other British subjects in Burma. Flory tries to introduce Elizabeth to different aspects of Burmese life - dances, bazzaars, the natives generally, but all Elizabeth can see is a beastly people below her as contrasted to the beautiful life of luxury she aspires to.

This week we’re reading the last third of The Scorching Wind by Walter Macken.

The final section of the book brings us to the apex of the Irish struggle for independence. Dominic’s character trajectory from vacillating fellow traveler to full blooded Irish Republican is brought to fruition, as is the cementing of Dualta’s and Dominic’s relationship as brothers. The conflict between Irish Republicans and British imperial soldiers heats up to the point where Dominic is constantly on the run - sleeping in the houses of brave Irish citizens, ditches, and eventually finds himself in a tomb with Dualta after Dualta assassinates the Irish traitor Sergeant Nick.

The wiley Sam finds Dominic and Dualta to tell them that the British and Irish authorities have entered negotiations and Dualta heads to be part of the treaty settlement while Dominic goes home to his mother. The Peace Treaty is signed and two factions emerge - on the one hand the radical Republicans who see the peace treaty as a farcical betrayal and those that accept the Peace Treaty as a step towards freedom. Surprisingly Dominc takes up the former, whereas Dualta becomes an agent of the state.

The final tragedy of the book is in it’s description of the war between brothers, both generally within the Irish community and specifically between Dominc and Dualta, as the sparkish Irish Civil War takes form. The final scene is an attack on an Irish army barracks by Dominic and company where Dualta is killed by Dominic.

From the book:

“Walter Macken was born in Galway in 1915. He was a writer of short stories, novels, and plays. Originally an actor, principally with Taibhdhearc in Galway, and the Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway in M.J Molloy’s The King of Friday’s Men and his own play Home Is The Hero. He also acted in films, notably in Arthur Dreifuss’ adaption of Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow. He is perhaps best known for his trilogy of Irish historical novels. Seek The Fair Land, The Silent People and The Scorching Wind. He passed away in 1967.”

This week we’re reading the second third of The Scorching Wind by Walter Macken.

This section opens up with Dominic on a train, bringing with him weapons and grenades for the Irish Independence movement. While he is on the train, two British soldiers, Skin and Mac, take seats next to him. They chat Dominic up about playing snooker (pool in American), poker, and politics. Dominic escapes without being found out and is picked up by Sam in a buggy which brings them to a “safe” house. In this house is Dominic’s brother Dualta and their mother. Unsurprisingly in this tale of constant action the house is raided by British soldiers, including Skin and Mac, Dominic is beaten half to death while they try to coax out of him Dualta's whereabouts. This is a kind of coming of age moment for Dominic, who is thoroughly converted to the Irish Independence movement.

The rest of the section is a mix of cloak and dagger guerilla warfare, prison escapes, remembrances of the dead, drowning torture scenes, and soliloquies on the meaning of the Irish struggle for freedom. By the end of Chapter 21, Dominic has become a man embroiled in the struggle for Irish Independence, for good or ill.

From the book:

“Walter Macken was born in Galway in 1915. He was a writer of short stories, novels, and plays. Originally an actor, principally with Taibhdhearc in Galway, and the Abbey Theatre, he played lead roles on Broadway in M.J Molloy’s The King of Friday’s Men and his own play Home Is The Hero. He also acted in films, notably in Arthur Dreifuss’ adaption of Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow. He is perhaps best known for his trilogy of Irish historical novels. Seek The Fair Land, The Silent People and The Scorching Wind. He passed away in 1967.”

This week we’re reading the first third of The Scorching Wind by Walter Macken.

The Scorching Wind opens from the perspective of Dominic, who is preparing to accompany his older, more handsome brother Dualta to the train that will bring Dualta to the Western Front of World War I. The boys come from a family steeped in the politics of Irish Independence. The Irish Nationalist movement is split at the outbreak of the Great War, on the one side the Redmond volunteers agreeing to fight for the empire in exchange for Home Rule, on the other the hardcore nationalists who wish to prosecute a national independence struggle in Ireland. The family of Dominic and Dualta reflect this split, Dualta is volunteering with Redmond, their father a principled nationalist.

After Dualta is sent off, the book transports us to the future, which culminates in the Easter Rebellion of 1916. The hardcore nationalists, led by the likes of Patrick Pearse and James Connoly, attempt an insurrection against the British state to establish an Irish Republic. Their efforts failed and 16 of the leaders of that rebellion are hanged by the British state.

In the wake of the Easter Rebellion, Dominic’s father is arrested by the British military and dies from a persistent cold exacerbated by prison conditions, Dualta returns from the Western front crippled but still impressive. Dominic remains resistant and intentionally aloof of the bubbling Irish resistance brewing around him, but is inevitably sucked into the schemes of his friends and associates.

The sections leaves off with Dominic on a train, watching as the charismatic Irish section leader Lorry is arrested by the infamous Black and Tans. Dominic wonders of Lorry’s fate and little does he know that Lorry was executed, with two bullets to his head and thrown in a ditch.

This week we’re reading the first half of Kim by Rudyard Kipling

Kim is an odd tale of an Irish orphan from the Indian city of Lahore. He is known to the people of Lahore as “Friend of the World” and Kipling shows us the varied peoples that consider Kim such a friend. The main arc of the story begins when Kim meets a Holy Man from Tibet, known to us as llama. This man is searching for a great River which will wash away his sins and release the llama from the Wheel of Life, coincidentally Kim also has a prophesy to fulfill, he must find a Red Bull in green grass which portends war. Off Kim and the llama go in search of the River over roads and on trains, the llama impressive in his forbearance and wisdom, Kim in his sly trickery. Until Kim comes upon a British regiment which turns out to be the regiment of his now deceased father. Kim is captured by the soldiers and sent to a school far away to be trained as a learned British subject - will Kim escape, does he even want to, and what happens to the llama? We’ll find out next week in this  strange fairy-tale of a story.

This week we’re She by H Rider Haggard

She is the quintessential story of British Adventure during the height of the nation’s imperialist empire. The story is written as a manuscript sent to an academic for later publication, the author another academic Holly. In the manuscript Holly recounts how he became the adopted father to Leo, the descendent of a long line of men whose destiny is to fulfill their vengeance on a sorceress in East Africa. Holly, Leo, and their manservant Job sail to discover more about this sorceress and fulfill the quest left by Leo’s father. They are faced with many trials. After being shipwrecked and forced to travel up a river with the super cool British airtight river boat, they are captured by the Amahagger people, but are informed that “She who must be obeyed” has ordered that any white man captured must remain unharmed (which turned out poorly for their Mohamadin traveling companion, the captain of their shipwrecked transport). It is revealed that Leo is the descendent of Kallikrates, the lover that She had fallen for two millennia ago. Will Holly and Leo escape the grasp of the immortal and captivating She? Read the book and find out!

H Rider Haggard was the author of many light Victorian adventure novels such as She, his most famous being King Solomon’s Mine. After a brief stint as a colonial bureaucrat in South Africa, he returned to England in 1882 and wrote several unsuccessful novels until King Solomon’s Mine, which he wisely took the 10% royalties on rather than the 100 pound upfront payment. He was an advocate for agricultural reform throughout the empire and a hard critic of Bolshevism later in his life, developing a friendship over his opposition to Bolshevism with Rudyard Kipling. He died in 1925.

This week we’re discussing Part 5 from the Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Lawrence James.

Parts 5 bring us from the Second World War to the anti-climactic end of the British Empire. Lawrence gives much focus to how the empire’s colonial subjects responded to the call for support from Britain during its fight against Hitler - whole hearted support with an implicit understanding that independence would soon follow. The Suez Crisis of 1956, in which British and French forces attempted to reclaim the Suez Canal from the Egyptian President Nasser, turned out to be the last hurrah of “great” British imperialism. Slowly and then quickly the British Empire began to dissolve, from Canada to India to South Africa - with the final major decolonisation taking place in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbawbwe) in 1979. Lawrence mulls over the legacy of the British Empire, was it the spread of civilization, the spread of barbarism, or as with most things, a lot a bit of both?

From the back of the book:

The Life of Charles Edward Cornwallis the Fifth aka the 1st Marquess Cornwallis aka Viscount Brome aka Earl Cornwallis aka Failure at Yorktown aka George Washington’s bitch.