John Masters
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FROM BAGHDAD TO THE BURMA ROAD... THE UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCES OF A BRITISH COMBAT OFFICER
John Masters came of age during Britain's battle for the Far East. His eyewitness account of front-line combat in Afghanistan, Persia and Burma is a uniquely stirring tribute to the infantrymen who fought in England's fiercest campaign.
"Mr. Masters knows about men, knew about the horror of command as well as its excitement and writes about them.. . in a most exact and moving way." --- The London Observer
FOREWORD In the foreword to the first volume of my autobiography, Bugles and a Tiger, I wrote---"The purpose of this book is to tell the story of how a schoolboy became a professional soldier of the old Indian Army. In the course of the story I hope to have given an idea of what India was like in those last twilit days of the Indian Empire and something more than a tourist's view of some of the people who lived there."
The Road Past Mandalay carries the narrative through to the end of the Second World War. Its purpose is to tell the story of how a professional officer of the old Indian Army reached some sort of maturity both as a soldier and a man. Some parts of the story are very unpleasant---so was the war it records; others are almost painfully personal---but this is not a battle diary: this is the story of one man's life. Of death and love I cannot say less with honesty or more with propriety.
There is another difference than that of time between this and the earlier volume. I think most people read Bugles and a Tiger for its depiction of a strange and rather romantic kind of life led by a very few. This book, The Road Past Mandalay, tells of experiences shared with scores of millions, not yet middle-aged, who have fought in war, have loved, have known separation and discomfort and danger. My story is not unique and I am not a hero, but an ordinary man, and I have written this narrative because I believe that many of you will recognise in it parts of your own life, and know that in writing of myself I have written, also, of you and for you.
As in Bugles I warn that this is a factual story but not a history. I have checked every detail as carefully as can but as I kept no diary and made no notes my memory may sometimes have deceived me. If it has, again, forgive me.
J. M.
Contents
Foreword
Book One: Action, West
Book Two: Changing Course
Book Three: Action East
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