Lord Minto by John Buchan

The close of the 'seventies was for Britain an era of little wars. There was trouble brewing in South Africa, but the main anxiety lay on the north-west frontier of India, since the check to Russia at Constantinople had turned her thoughts to Central Asian expansion, and the uneasy politics of Afghanistan had begun to reflect her ambitions. The Second Afghan War began in November 1878, when Shere Ali, having received a Russian envoy at Kabul, had declined to receive a British. Sir Donald Stewart marched from Baluchistan through the Bolan Pass and occupied Kandahar, another force went through the Khyber to Jalalabad, and Sir Frederick Roberts moved from the Kurrum valley through the high passes, defeated the Amir at Peiwar Kotal, and occupied the Shutargardan Pass, which gave direct access to Kabul. Shere Ali fled northwards and presently died, and for six months it seemed hard to know how to bring the campaign to an end. A successor to Shere Ali must be found with whom Britain could treat, for it was idle to push British armies farther into a difficult and dangerous country with no strategic objective at the end of the advance.

While the war was thus stagnant on the frontier, Melgund set off from England to take his chance of seeing something of the campaign. He had no official position, or promise of one, but he had many friends at the front, and he trusted to the luck which had never deserted him on his expeditions. He arrived in Bombay in January 1879, and went on to Calcutta, to stay with the Lyttons at Government House. There he saw and admired the portrait of his great-grandfather, the first Earl of Minto, in the Council Room.