THE LINDLEY AFFAIR

Hardcover in red cloth with title in gilt on front. 52 pages with endpaper maps. Dust jacket unclipped. Bookplate of previous owner on inside cover. A clean copy.

The book centres on the diary of Reckitt's father, Trooper Frank Reckitt of the 47th Company, 13th Battalion Imperial Yeomanry, during the Second Anglo-Boer War.

The diary chronicles his rapid enlistment in October 1899 amid the war's outbreak, transport to Cape Town for minimal training, and journey by train and horseback with a supply column toward Lord Roberts' army at Johannesburg. En route in the north-eastern Free State, the unit faced ambush by Boer forces under General Piet de Wet, enduring six days of fighting that exposed daily troop life, command decisions, and combat realities before their surrender on May 31, 1900, at Lindley.

Reckitt enhances this personal eyewitness account—distilling the truths of volunteer soldiers' abrupt shift from boredom to battle—against the broader context on the war's causes and progression. Also an analysis of responsibilities for the defeat from British and Boer perspectives.