Word: sepoy
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...merchants, soldiers and women of the British community in India had little sense of what lay in store for them, those last days of 1856, on the eve of the Sepoy Mutiny. Even sturdy Captain Rodney Savage, 13th Rifles, Bengal Native Infantry, was slow to understand the signs and undercurrents: holy gurus croaking to the crows, the native nightrunners who were carrying from village to village the bread and goat-flesh symbols of Shiva, god of destruction...
...hero of a blood & thunder historical novel, Rodney could certainly have paid more attention than he did to the uneasy behaviour of his own sepoy infantrymen. They were badly upset by the rumor (true enough, in fact) that their rifle cartridges were greased with a mixture of beef and hog fat: by the sanctions of religion, the use of beef fat was mortal offense to the Hindus among them, hog fat to the Mohammedans. Fanatics and profiteers, princes and foreign agents were also working overtime to stir up the sepoys. By the time Savage had it all deciphered...
India was ready for a spark. Drought wrote a warning of famine across the country; Russia at UNO had fanned the winds of Asiatic nationalism. A trivial incident at Bombay touched off the British Empire's worst rebellion since the great Sepoy Mutiny...
Samuel James Browne entered Britain's Indian Army in 1840 as a 16-year-old ensign. He soldiered for his Queen through the next 39 years. In the Sepoy Mutiny he led a desperate charge against rebel artillery at Sirpura, lost his left arm and won the cherished Victoria Cross. Later campaigns earned him fame, knighthood, full general's rank, honorable retirement...
...that last day of the fast (Thanksgiving Eve in the U. S.) most of the soldiers were licking their chops in anticipation of the gorging they would do for the feast of Bairam during the next three days. Among their number, however, was one young sepoy who, half-crazed through abstention, ran amuck during the night. He forced his way into the tent of the battalion's major, with his rifle shot the major dead in his sleep. Aroused, five other officers-three British and two Indian-rushed to the scene. Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang,-the sepoy killed...