Forget the Glory [Paperback]

"In that December of 1853 his reputation as one of the most valiant officers in the service of Queen Victoria was undeniable, but in the breasts of his fellows burnt the secret desire to see the regimental daredevil brought to his knees. In the breasts of the fair sex burnt the same desire, except that they wished him to be brought to only one knee-at their feet, declaring his unquenchable passionate devotion."

And that my friends, is Captain Rowan DeMayne, the hero of this story. Having disgraced himself over an unsuitable female and cast out by his family Rowan joins the 43rd Light Dragoons in the backwaters of India where they see little action, although they can march quite prettily in their full dress uniforms. The other half of this story is that of Mary Clarke, born and raised in the barracks and doomed to spend her life as the wife of a foot soldier - and if he dies she must immediately marry another - and there is never a way out of that life. Or is there?

The 43rd is called to Crimea to the aid of the fallen Light Brigade and as they begin the long journey there Mary gets the opportunity to "get a leg up" in life when she's offered the job of personal maid to Rowan's vapid wife. The 43rd makes an incredible journey as they travel across India, oversea to Egypt, then to Alexandria to set sail once again to reach the Crimea.

On the surface that might sound a tad bit boring, but trust me it's not. Rowan carries some serious emotional baggage and Mary may be the only one who can heal them. Their verbal battles were a lot of fun to watch as the tension heated up between them. You'll get to see the difficulties of moving a large troop of soldiers and their horses across land and sea - let alone how dangerous a ship full of terrified horses during a storm at sea can be. You will feel as parched and dirty as the soldiers did as they march across the barren desert, and heartbreak at the suffering of their fellow soldiers during the savage Russian winter. As for the final days before the seige of Sebastopol is finally over?

"What had it all been for, they asked themselves. Why had thousands died by sword, sickness and extremes of weather? For what reason had boys agonized and been sundered only yesterday?...There was no victory, no glory in this! Why had they come?"

Yes, war is hell. Another unputdownable book from Emma Drummond, and she will keep you on pins and needles waiting for that HEA until the very very last page. I really liked using Mary's character to show the disparity between *classes* of the common foot soldier and their wives and the officers - well done. Drummond also writes under the name Elizabeth Darrell and the same book can be found under both author names. Not sure why, but I love the exotic Eastern settings she uses and I will be hunting down more of her books in the very near future.

I have read every word this author has written. She also writes as Elizabeth Darrell. This is my favorite of all her books, though. I've read it so many times my old paperback copy fell apart and I had to buy a hardcover.

"Forget the Glory" is set in a British Army unit, the 43rd Light Dragoons or "Gingerbread Boys," during the 1850s. It chronicles the epic journey of this unit from its home in India to the battlefields of the Crimean War. While this regiment is fictional, its adventures are based on those of two real regiments which undertook a similar journey at this time. The hardships undergone by the men and women in this story, crossing India on horseback, the ocean, the sands of Egypt, storms at sea again, and finally facing the crucible of war in the Crimea, are utterly enthralling. And regimental wives really did travel with their men.

Besides all the adventure, this is one of the greatest love stories I've ever read. Captain Rowan DeMayne is the black sheep of an old, aristocratic military family who's been forced by scandal to leave the family regiment. He has joined a less illustrious new regiment with no battle honors and whose other officers are drawn from the middle class. He's wild, brave and brilliant and currents of admiration (especially feminine), resentment and exasperation swirl around him. Mary Clarke, on the other hand, is a "woman of the regiment," daughter to one of its enlisted men. After being orphaned in her mid teens, she married first another enlisted man, then, after being widowed, one of the senior NCOs. This much older husband gives her her first real home and treats her like a highly favored daughter and a lady. He improves her reading skills, introducing her to his small library, the only memento of him she keeps. Mary is widowed again only months later and this time refuses to marry another trooper, regarding a return to the barracks block as a real step back. Having been once humiliated by Capt. DeMayne, who regards her as a typically drunken slattern of the lower orders, Mary is determined to better herself. Since she refuses to marry another common soldier, she is struck off the strength of the regiment, and faces the problem of making a living without resort to prostitution, the usual fate of such a woman. After various makeshift endeavors, Mary is hired by Capt. DeMayne's wife as a lady's maid. The DeMayne marriage is far from happy and Rowan at first regards Mary with great suspicion, but both partners treat her with civility, and she works hard at modeling her speech and manners after her betters. When Rowan's wife dies in an accident during a storm at sea, he must face his guilt over having come to dislike her while Mary once more must deal with the issue of survival within terms acceptable to her.

What I particularly like about this book is how both Mary and Rowan develop and mature. Mary's drive to learn, to embrace life, to better herself, as well as her courage and loyalty to other individuals and to the regiment, really appealed to me. Rowan, too, while a natural soldier and leader, learns to harness his wildness for the common good and develops a better appreciation of others, even of lower social rank (this is a story set among the Victorian English, remember). A romance between two people of such different background seems highly unlikely. While there are many rather stupid historical romances written about people of differing social ranks, this one really works for me because both characters change so much during the story. The social differences are real and not simply upper class prejudices. Real work is needed to overcome the problems.

An additional remark on the hero is in order. There are a lot of fictional leading men out there who have been traumatized by their military experience, and while they have all been heroes, of course, by and large they loathe their experiences and need only confess their feelings, usually shame and guilt at killing, to the heroine in order to be healed. The authors of these stories clearly regard soldiering as morally inferior to the life of home body civilians. I would never deny that there are real former soldiers who have been severely traumatized, but this has become a rather trite and simplistic literary formula. While Rowan DeMayne is scarred both physically and emotionally, he has never wanted to be anything but a soldier and has no desire to be anything but a soldier. His great ambition is to one day be colonel of the regiment. His bravery in battle finally wins him redemption in the eyes of his family and former colleagues, who invite him to rejoin their regiment. Rowan, to every one's surprise, remains loyal to his new friends. I find such a character to be refreshingly free from heavy handed moralizing. There are men like this too.

I really, really love this book and these characters. Their romance, to my mind, ranks with the all time great love stories. While I bought a used copy, "Forget the Glory" has recently been reissued in a hard cover edition by a British publisher, Severn House. Read it, enjoy it, and read all of the author's other fine books.