Hira Singh: When India Came to Fight in Flanders

September 1914. A regiment of Sikh cavalry rides into the killing fields of Flanders, fighting for an empire that regards them as subjects, not citizens. When battle leaves them captured behind German lines, the real war begins. Hira Singh, wounded and recovering in a convalescent camp, tells the story of his brothers-in-arms: men who broke out of enemy captivity and embarked on an impossible journey across war-ravaged Europe, led by the indomitable Ranjoor Singh. This is not just a war story. It is a tale of men caught between empires, their loyalty to the British Crown warring against a deeper loyalty to their own honor, their own people, their own homeland. Mundy, writing in 1918, captures something few war novels of his era did: the complicated, often painful truth of colonial soldiers fighting for a distant king while questioning what that king truly owes them. The escape sequences crackle with tension, but it is the quiet moments of reflection where the novel finds its depth, asking what it means to die for a flag that does not fly over your own village.