Merchant's Tale Books

It is 1857 and the Sahibs in India have no doubts about their world and its legitimacy. Their viewpoints were those of the new Victorian Supremacy, soon to be called ‘Empire’. Robert Meiklejohn is born to that world and shares its point of view and ways of thought. He has no doubt of the superiority of the British and of the wisdom of their ways. This is his book and the expressions are those of his time and perhaps alien to far distant generations. Commencing with what was then called ‘The Great Mutiny’, this series will follow an India country merchant’s son as he tries to make sense of his life in India and elsewhere, first as a soldier for the Company’s Army in its final years.

Bob Meiklejohn has survived the onset of the Indian Mutiny, coming out of the butcher’s shambles of the onslaught on Delhi with honour. His first reaction is to leave India, to go Home, to England where his father is settled. England, however, is welcoming but alien to him. He cannot find himself at ease there. He chooses to go off to Ceylon, almost India, as a trader for the family firm. En route, he meets the delegation from Downing Street, sent to finalise arrangements for the New India and is coopted into their ranks as a known soldier and India expert. While aboard ship, he meets the daughter of the largest trading house in Calcutta and finds himself comfortable in her company. She is in love and he wants to settle into a family, at first, soon finding more as he comes to know her. Once in India he is made use of by the delegation and the Governor General and finds himself in the way of making a senior place in the new Raj. He is still not at home – born in India but English in too many ways. He does not belong in the Raj. He is adrift and must find some shore on which he can settle.