The Regiment

by Christopher Nicole Book 1 in the Regiment Trilogy series.

First published 1988

Amazon

4.5(2,335)

The Second Boer War sends young subaltern Murdoch Mackinder and the Royal Western Dragoon Guards to South Africa. As the latest member of a family long associated with the regiment, Murdoch expects courage and tradition to provide the answers required of an officer. Combat against mobile Boer forces instead exposes the limitations of cavalry assumptions in an age of magazine rifles, entrenchment and modern communications.

Murdoch rises through the ranks and becomes the regiment’s most celebrated soldier, but professional success brings obligations that extend beyond the battlefield. Marriage, past relationships and the approach of a European war test whether the institution can adapt without losing the identity on which its authority rests. The novel establishes both Murdoch’s career and the regiment as a family inheritance shaped by sacrifice as much as glory.