ABSTRACT
Alfriston is a charming village to visit. Lord Amulree invited me to spend a week-end at an abandoned coastguard station, National Trust property, on the cliffs a mile or so to the south-west of Alfriston. At the pub called The Tiger I heard a yokel say, “Yes, my boy’s regiment has been posted abroad. Some place they call the Khyber.” He hadn’t heard of it, but I had; the name Khyber Pass was as familiar to my ears as were the words ‘Gordon Highlanders’ or ‘Kitchener’ or the ‘Relief March to Khartoum’. Historical debris, like the ‘Ridge’ on which was our old house in Delhi years after it had been the home of the British Army quelling the ‘Mutiny’, and of General Dyer who ‘saved India by a timely order to fire’ at Amritsar. Of course some Indians got killed, but India was ‘saved’. My parents found it most disturbing when their son began to believe stories that General Dyer’s troops lost their heads and opened fire—and continued to fire their machine guns into the dense and helpless erowd of Indians milling around in the restricted square.
