Sergeant Arthur Bowman is a tough fighter who not shrink from any adventure. Even at sixteen he joined in 1840 in the service of the venerable British East India Company abbr>, the 1600-founded “most powerful trading company of the universe”, based in London. An army of three hundred thousand men ensures their global business activities with a fifth of the world population. With operations in Africa and Asia, he has made a reliable name: disciplined, brave relentlessly to themselves and others, assertive and adaptable.
That’s why he is now, at age 28, selected for a secret mission.
A fleet of seventeen ships sailed just before the monsoon season on the Irrawaddy, the huge power in the Kingdom of Ava (now Myanmar). In Major Cavendish cabin Bowman receives further instructions and do the same, as he looks at the spread-out cards that you send him on a suicide mission. Ten men of his free choice to accompany him. His squad consists of daredevils, convicts and prisoners who expect Diziplinarverfahren or death sentences and have gambled their lives anyway, and no one expects it, and Bowman will ever return from this delicate mission.
Before the special unit changes to a small junk to pursue all asked about their job on himself, all men have their personal belongings left behind on board, even exchange their uniforms for clothing of the locals. This also applies to their leader, Bowman. It is particularly important, a powder horn, which he let himself make as a reward after the victory over Punjab at his own expense in Bombay.
It is a fine job of silver and mother of pearl, coated inside with rubber, and therefore waterproof. Trusting he asked the captain of the “Sea Runner” to keep the good pieces in the duffel bag carefully for him.
The mission that is clear to us readers, is no picnic. How to set the mood Bowman and his men have to watch from their abandoned junk from idly by as the soldiers of the “Sea Runner” burn down the bay and an entire fishing village mercilessly with his all residents.
Then are said in navigating particularly skillful Chinese direct the small boat over the meanders of the rough Irrawaddy. But soon afterwards it is stuck in the middle of the deepest jungle. The waters of the onset of monsoon storms threaten to destroy the NUC vehicle, enemy attacks is to be defenseless.
Bowmans worst fears take shape. The order to hijack a boat to sell his weapons charge to the minutes, it can easily cost all their lives. Given the threat of extreme danger the commander setting an awful example to his men to impress, whom they have to strictly follow. He wanted to survive!
Winning the decisive battle, as feared, the Min by heavy cannon fire. Bowman loses one of his men, all others are captured and taken to the depths of the dark, hot jungle where she expected the worst torture. After a year envoys reach the British company in negotiations with King Mindon Min of Burma to release her. Severely scarred with deep emotional scars and outer return Bowman and his remaining men in 1853 to London.
Six years later, Bowman just a shadow of himself, a dahinvegetierender, battered body. A job as a policeman at the “Thames Brigade” – a kind of charity for veterans who had served in the colonies – saves him from having to beg. Night after night looking for him nightmares home. Then he looks at the desperate, pained faces of men who had knocked out his teeth and done worse, which had to be allowed to survive, mutilate their own comrades. Klapper drought figures, like cattle kept in cages, screaming day and night in pain. Bowman tries to drown the horror in alcohol and opium.
With the above average hot summer of 1859, the Far Eastern and exotic adventures converts colonial history into a thriller. In a channel a body is found that just has such scars, as Bowman’s body wearing them. On one wall of the killers left a message: “survival”. The suspicion falls on Bowman. Who recently caused a stir when he beat up a supervisor mercilessly and found his victim later with a slashed throat and cut fingers …
So Bowman obtains his past. No doubt about it: One of the other nine survivors must have the bloody act is committed. To prove his own innocence, he must inform the offender of them find. His odyssey from candidate to candidate – along a trail of blood Another ritual murders – is and take him again into the distance, this time to the West
Antonin Varennes novel ” Trois. mille chevaux vapeur < "Antonin Varenne: "Trois mille chevaux vapeur" at"
as good as the exciting plot I liked how the author designed the historical background , He does not leave it in superficial details of everyday life in Asia, Britain and later America, but leaves the political, economic and social problems of the time recognized. Throughout the novel runs through a critical tone, denouncing the unbridled exploitation of countries and people.
Finally, we went to the wedding of colonization has long ceased only with to the expansion of friendly trade relations with foreign countries, but a all means ausgefochtene rivalry between the European powers to the appropriation of valuable resources, securing lucrative markets and supremacy on the oceans. In this wider context, the secret mission for which Bowman and his men gave their soul was.
particularly disillusioning the image fails, draws the Varenne of America. Mid-19th century flooded an exodus from Europe, the “New World”, running away from poverty, disease and lack of freedom, in search of a piece of fertile land for everyone, according to the California gold and the “opportunity”. But the promises rarely fulfilled. The US government already pulled the emergency brake, to restrict immigration. Also in the new home, the living conditions prove hard struggle for survival. gone barely in New York from aboard, Bowman gets the same in a dispute between striking textile workers and soldiers. Most people he meets as he travels by stagecoach to Texas, have buried their hopes for a better future, because the gold mines are leergeschürft, the best land is already sold.
What the end of this Roman takes and however Bowman himself undergoes an inner transformation to its long travel, this was not revealed here. Anyway, the story of this soldier, adventurer and Western hero, like a pit bull can only come to rest when he has made up his merciless adversary, a true dark, but perfectly entertaining reading for dark autumn and winter days.
The seven lives of Arthur Bowman Antonin Varenne Review. (2019, Nov 18). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-seven-lives-of-arthur-bowman-antonin-varenne-my-review/