An Officer of the Crown: Reminiscences of an English Ensign's Journey to the East in 1836 - Softcover

An Officer Of The Crown is a historical novel written in the style of an illustrated 19th century journal. David Alexander Driscol is the eighteen- year-old middle-class son of a retired regimental sergeant major of Anglo-Irish and Danish descent and presently an Ensign in the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Light Infantry, his father’s old regiment. Ensign Driscol is headed to India and on the way will meet with many high and low adventures. He encounters Lieutenant Perkins of the Royal Engineers who is forming an expedition and Driscol is the first man recruited for the expedition. Lieutenant Perkins is a consummate rake and source of wonder, embarrassment and bewilderment to the younger naïve Driscol.
Driscol is an eccentric young man, an Englishman who hates tea, alcohol, horses, dogs and Frenchmen but loves books, collects recipes, loves cats and is studying Persian and Arabic to become an explorer and not only the army officer his father wishes him to be. Driscol is in conflict with his own weaknesses. He is inflicted with disabling haemophobia and acrophobia, and struggles with society as a whole and British bureaucracy in particular. He must also hide his dislike of the dominant Anglican religion. He confronts many obstacles on his path to India where he hopes to obtain his desire of becoming an explorer and to ‘shake the pagoda tree’, to make his fortune. He also hopes to find out more about those delightful creatures called women.
The book and series is written to appeal to those outstanding and well-thinking people who have enjoyed books by the following authors:
E.M. Forester, Patrick O’Brian, George Fraser, Joseph Conrad, Jack London, Bernard Cornwell, Jules Verne, Kipling, Haggard, Doyle, Defoe, Swift, Hemmingway, Wouk, Monserrat, Burroughs, Mallinson, Turtledove, Toole (Confederacy of Dunces), and G.T. Henty; additionally science fiction authors such as Phillip Dick, De Camp, Stirling, Burroughs, Brunner and others who wrote about high adventure on other planets/places/dimensions/alternative time lines. Readers of 19th century history books and military campaigns of the Victorian era will also find An Officer of the Crown of great interest.
Spoiler alert! Details about the book:
The first volume recounts Ensign Driscol’s preparations to leave England and the first steps of his voyage to India in 1836 for a secondment with the Indian army. There he is to join an expedition to explore Independent Tartary. He meets Marguerite on the coach up to his home in Eccles, Lancashire with whom he begins a correspondence. He bids farewell to his family and close friends including his acquaintance, Karen Wainwright, with whom he has an unresolved relationship. On the way to, and in London, he has his share of misadventures and triumphs.
He takes a steamship to Gibraltar and meets with several escapades, especially a young lady of good family, Millicent, and her two sisters. He is parted from her and continues his voyage by a Maltese boat to Ceuta, Algiers and Malta, fighting off a Chilean Officer who demands a duel and a piratical attack off Algiers. This is where Driscol has his first action and is much dismayed by the loss of friends and killing a man. In Malta he conducts an outrageous prank on the Royal Navy, starting a long running feud with that service and then makes his way to Alexandria. He goes by canal boat to Cairo where Perkins takes up with a local courtesan. There, Driscol assists a Maltese friend in investigating the selling of Jewish children in the slave market of Cairo, and visits the Pyramids. The two then travel to Suez where they recruit the third member of their expedition.
In Volume II he engages the Turks and Arabs at Jeddah, reaches Bombay, joins the Indian Army, takes on a concubine and recruits for the expedition. In Volume III the expedition sets sail for Persia and Tartary. In Volume IV the expedition enters Tartary with unexpected results.