Redcoats for the Raj, a book by Donald Featherstone, published by Valda Books, 4 Abbey Wall Church Street, Romsey. Hampshire, S051 8BU, UK (15.99 pounds) (ISBN. 0.9526861.0.4).

Donald Featherstone must be well known to all wargamers. He has written and published around 4 books, the majority on wargaming. Any Colonial/Victorian wargamer will be interested in this novel. It struck a chord in me because I spent a lot of my infantry training in the 50's in Victorian barrack blocks; first in The Castle, Richmond in Yorkshire and later in Aldershot in Salamanca and Badajoz barracks.

I can see the inside of these awful 18 bedrooms now, with the cubicle at one end for the NCO. One window at the far end wall and one each on either side the single door onto the long air landing. The iron stove. the black bootpolish lines on the floor to line up the beds and the sliding metal beds themselves, closed up with mattress "biscuits" piled on them and a regulation "bolt" blankets and sheets with a pillow finishing off the pile.

This book is subtitled "Tales from a Victorian Barrack Room." It is set in India about 1886, though one of the squaddies is an American who fought in the Civil War for the Confederate Army. The stories of all the subsection are told gradually, including the macabre story of the Pioneer who had to build a scaffold to hang a condemned prisoner, and how it "came in handy" later for hanging "Pandies" - mutineers.

Sjt. Oakley is the character on which the stories hang, and he is the highe ranking soldier to have his story woven for us. Don's writing is quite masterly and the atmosphere of the soldiers' ghastly life in India at the time is put together in a mixture of description, dialog, and implication. I heartily recommend this book to you. It will be interesting to see if Don writes any more novels.

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