Shooting Leave

by John Ure

The real stories behind the phantom worlds of Kipling, John Buchan's heroes and Flashman's villains.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

303 pages, Paperback

First published December 17, 2009

Reviews

[James Rivett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been fascinated by the great game ever since I first encountered Kim as a child.This is a good read with a conversational style as if one was listening to an old campaigner recounting their adventures at the hearth side on a winter's evening.
Shooting Leave very much reminds me of the biography of Aubrey Herbet, The Man Who was Greenmantle, as a story of young adventurous army officers ranging across Eurasia in the name of Empire, science and discovery. In many ways, what they encountered beggars belief and the sheer daring and cocksuredness of their approach to exploration and intelligence gathering is amazing.
This book is not on a par with those by Hopkirk and others I have read, but it's style and tone as well as research allow it to stand as a good companion to books like The Secret Service East of Constantinople.

[Peter Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been so much better. Ure has a genuine love of this period and these adventures, which comes across well in this book. However, it suffers from a number of problems.

On the positive:

It's a very easy read. His style doesn't get bogged down with detail that makes it heavy going.

On the negative:

There is only one map instead of one of each adventurer's travels.
There are no portraits of the people involved.
There is little in the way of wider arc to join the individual tales into a bigger narrative.
Each story is more or less the same - an account of a journey over an inhospitable landscape amongst inhospitable locals. You could slice an incident from any and insert it into another and no one would ever know.

[Dave Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

As ever with anthologies on subjects I’m interested in, reading them inevitably leads to a flurry of more orders destined for the ‘to read pile’ and this collection doesn’t deviate from that rule … some of the protagonists I was familiar with, either through their own accounts, or in the books of Peter Hopkirk who first introduced me to the Great Game … and the ones I wasn’t? I look forward to becoming more acquainted with.

[John Ollerton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The superlatives of the character of these diplomats and soldiers are awe inspiring but a little repetitive. Watching Michael Palin’s Ripping Yarns you get the flavour of these adventurers. The slaughter of exotic animals is unpleasant to take.

[Mark Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read about some interesting characters in the Great Game. Really explains how Russia Khanates.

[Gerald Sinstadt · Rating 3 out of 5]

For virtually the whole of the 19th Century, the territory north and north west of India - Afghanistan and several other -stans - was largely terra incognita. India, which initially meant the semi-autonomous East India Company, thought that might provide an invasion route for Russia's imperialistic ambitions. Russia thought so, too. Both nations felt the need to know more about the huge, largely-unmapped terrain, much of it ruled by independent, often hostile Khans. Even more of it was at the mercy of lawless bandits. The quest for that knowledge was led by adventurous young men, primarily officers serving in the armies of Russia and India. Sometimes they travelled in uniform, more often in disguise - in effect, as spies. They became participants in what has come to be known as the Great Game.

The hazards of extreme conditions and the ever-present possibility of imprisonment or death have been widely recorded, never more grippingly than in the books of Peter Hopkirk. A more recent author is Sir John Ure, a former British senior diplomat with extensive experience in the region. His book, Shooting Leave, deals with the convenient fiction of absence from military duty in pursuit of sport as a cover for clandestine observation; his chapters are devoted, one by one, to a dozen-and-a-half intrepid players of the Great Game. Most, though not all, survived their ordeals to be rewarded in later life with promotion to the highest echelons of military service with knighthoods beyond.

Shooting Leave has numerous example of how survival required great personal courage, endurance, intelligence and sometimes sheer luck. Lieutenants Sykes and Coningham once, when travelling in disguise, fell into the grip of the Tsarist police. They were suspected on the one hand of being bearers of cholera, and on the other of being "Russian anarchists with terrorist intentions. The irony of their position was that they gained their release by persuading the police that far from being Russiann terorists disguised as Englishmen, they were in fact eccentric Englishmen travelling as Russians."

For more substantial accounts of the Great Game the reader might well turn to Peter Hopkirk, but Sir John's pen portraits of some of the leading players will make enjoyable complementary material.

[Kenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the Great Game between Britain and Russia, soldiers and diplomats often took extended 'shooting leave' to explore the largely unknown territory of central Asia. This book recounts a number of the tales, with a cast of often larger than life characters, fierce and perfidious tribesmen and derring do, there's a bit of boy's own fun to be had - with the advantage that it's all true.

Ure recounts a number of these trips using the primary sources, with some extra comments and context and gives a good feel for the individuals concerned - warts and all (much needed for the modern reader to understand the mindset and default feelings of superiority).

These are often fascinating, but also sometimes a little plodding - sometimes the writing is a little dry. I was often more entertained by the author's footnotes referencing developments in the 100 years or so before he travelled in the region as a young diplomat in the 1950s than his main narrative.

Good and well worth dipping into though. What a difference the 120 years have made though - nowadays our diplomats would be more likely to be disciplined for doing something like this (it is dangerous after all) than applauded for it. A good reminder of how much harder life was then - and how people rose to the challenge for sport, excitement and country.

[Michael M · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read about the Great Game, played out between the Britiish Raj in India and the Russian Empire.

It tells the individual stories of both British and Russian participants in this 19th century "cold war" played out in remote parts of central asia about we still know little in this country and in a country, Afghanistan, that we know much about (although, apparently, learn little.

This book will appeal if you like any of the following subjects, history, espionage, travelogues and exploration.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

tad tedious but enlightening

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

More than a dozen tales of semi-official exploration by British and Russian officers in Central Asia. A good synopsis of longer and older publications.