FANFARE by Andrew MacAllan

The senseless slaughter of 40,000 in the retreat from Kabul sees just two survivors: Scottish physician Douglas Kintyre and the orphan baby he brings safely into the world at the expense of its mother's life. Named Benjamin Fanfare Bannerman, because his birth coincides with a desperate bugle call to arms, the boy is unofficially adopted by Kintyre and spends his early life in India, where he learns the language and grows to love that mystical land and its people.

After some years, Kintyre returns to Scotland and takes the boy with him. But the doctor's dour spinster housekeeper takes an instant dislike to the lad, then in his teens, and plots and schemes until, miserable and unhappy, he runs away. He takes with him his one possession of value — an unusually carved ruby ring, his mother's only legacy.

This is Ben Bannerman’s story… A story of courage, danger and romance set in India and Afghanistan.