They were there when Francis Light founded Penang in 1786. They were there when Raffles landed at Singapore in 1819. In fact, they were present at every major historical milestone which led to the creation of the Straits Settlements and other key outposts in the East Indies. These were the ‘sepoys’: the hundreds of thousands of professional soldiers from the Indian Subcontinent, who served in South-East Asia between the 18th and 20th centuries. Trained along the lines of contemporary British military methods, they devoted their lives - often literally - to successive colonial administrations, initially as troops of the English East India Company and later, the British Indian Army. Yet, despite the intimate roles they once played, they have since faded from memory and remain conspicuously absent from the pages of modern-day history books. Now, for the very first time, The Forgotten Sentinels fills this inexcusable void with an enthralling account which documents the epic adventures of these men.