The Leopard and the Cliff

The classic military adventure: a gripping tale of honour, duty, and sacrifice during the Afghan war of 1919 in British India.

‘A writer who never disappoints one. He has an extraordinary power of treating military disaster in depth and yet with pace, whether on the frontiers of Rome or British India, and of analysing the tensions of command. Gripping as an action story, deeply moving on the individual level, it involves one as an eye-witness from beginning to end.’ Mary Renault

This classic military adventure is a gripping insight into life on an exposed outpost of the Afghan frontier.
Major Charles Sandeman is an unlikely hero: an intellectual soldier, repeatedly passed over for promotion in the British Indian Army. When war suddenly erupts between India and Afghanistan in 1919, Sandeman is caught, as the locals say, ‘between the leopard and the cliff’. Facing an uprising of hostile border tribes and mutinies, he must rise to the challenge and lead the retreat of his soldiers in a bleak trek through unforgiving terrain.

Brimming with action, suspense, and psychological power, The Leopard and the Cliff is a masterful military adventure which has never felt more prophetic, offering insights into colonialism and tribal divides that haunt the world today.

‘Gripping … Brings out movingly and with skill points of vital importance to an understanding of British India and the Frontier … Highly dramatic.’ Philip Mason