KHYBER RIFLES
As a boy of about 9, I saw the movie "King of the Khyber Rifles" with Tyrone Power. My interest in the British in India was already raging with "Gunga Din" and "Lives of a Bengal Lancer". This movie, in color, was larger than life, and it seems there were caves and drama, intrigue which fascinated me. However, the title made a deep impression and I wondered in years to follow, 'just WHAT was a Khyber Rifle?
I did not recall or realize that the character in the movie was Capt, Alan King, played by Tyrone Power.
Years passed, and in the early 70s, I saw a newspaper article about the Khyber Pass titled something like 'still heading them off at the Khyber' and mentioned the 1953 film.......I was gone!!!
Years of research led me to the book "King of the Khyber Rifles" (Talbot Mundy, 1916) the basis for the movies..............then further I found that this was based on Sir Robert Burton titled "Eighteen Years in the Khyber" (1900) and told of his exploits commanding native units there in late 19th c.
Like in the Mundy book and movie, Warburton was both British and Afghan.
The 'Khyber Rifles' were a British army police levy comprised mostly of Afridi forces who were originally armed with their own tribal jezail long guns. These tribesmen were deadly snipers with these guns as told by Kipling in his famed poem "Frontier Arithmetic". ....and the book by Warburton has one of these on the cover (pictured).
In time the unit replaced the jezails with the modified Snider-Enfield rifle , a muzzle load musket converted to breech loading. A number of years later, these were replaced with the Martini-Henry rifle, also breech load.
So HERE were the KHYBER RIFLES, actually a British paramilitary unit in the Khyber Pass, and THESE were the types of rifles used.
The seeds of my curiosity planted in that movie seen as a young boy, and recalled two decades later, sent me on a quest researching this to the present day, and acquiring these rifles.
The badge was incredibly elusive and found one just two years ago.
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