Leonard became a good linguist in his time - he was able to speak German, French and Italian - and Hindi, Urdu and Gurkhali, these last being a requirement of his army service.

[14] The Second Boer War, 1899 - 1902, was fought to prevent parts of South Africa – Orange Free State and Transvaal - seceding from British control.

[16] The Younghusband Expedition to Tibet, 1903 - 1904, was a late imperial adventure, ordered by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, to create a foothold on India's Northern border against the feared Russian and Chinese influences.

Though militarily successful the treaties it led to were later revoked, and it fell into disfavour with government and the British public, who saw it as a massacre of unarmed peasants.

The History of the 10th Gurkha Rifles says of him: “Bethell was a strange and in some ways eccentric character and many stories were told about him and his unorthodox disciplinary methods, but there was never any criticism of his work as Depot Commander throughout the war, and the 1st Battalion owe him a deep debt of gratitude for the five drafts sent them... he also showed unusual breadth of vision in the great care he took to safe-guard the health and happiness of the families of the men on service.”.

[16] Bethell left the army in 1927 owing to ill health, and began a successful writing career – under his own name, but also under pseudonyms 'Pousse Cailloux' and 'Forepoint Severn' – generally covering his own experiences with the Gurkhas.

('Pousse Cailloux - a French expression for 'foot soldier', 'Forepoint Severn' - probably a reference to the 4.7 inch gun used in World War I - known for its reliability) When contributing to magazines other than Blackwoods he uses even more pseudonyms - "Mauser", "Punjabi", and "Peter Paul" - in the Sphere, and the Graphic.

(Letter from Bethell to Bailey)[23] The stories in the collection are from remote corners of the world, especially the British Empire, and told by people living in or with experience of those places.

The project took three years, from 1930 to 1933, and included contributions from notable authors and personalities - Sir Hugh Clifford, Joseph Conrad, John Buchan, Fredrick Marshman Bailey, Alfred Noyes, George Younghusband, Lord Baden-Powell, Weston Martyr, Humfrey Jordan, Frank Coutts Hendry, Ernest Swinton, Edmund Candler, Alfred Ollivant, R. E. Vernede, Geo.

"The Silver Hand of Alexander" - a remarkable, though speculative, account of factors in the Conolly and Stoddart affair, based on archives of The Great Game that Bethell had been given access to.

The title refers to a silver replica of the hand of Alexander - almost the only successful conqueror of Afghanistan and other Islamist Khanates of the area, where his name still carries respect.

Bethell says in his opening paragraph that his story brings cause and effect into closer relationship than occurred in real life, and that he does not use real names - "so it is useless, after all these years, to try to identify the people who walk through these pages" "Movable Columns" - Strategy in jungle warfare, in particular the work by the Assam Military Police – of which Bethell was Assistant Commandant – to normalise relations with the tribes following the withdrawal of the Abor expedition.

Volume 11 : From Strange Places: "Eldorado Unlimited" - An economic history of India from the first opening of the sea route to Bombay onwards.

Volume 12 : In Lighter Vein: "Weights and Scales" - A fishing holiday in happy mood, somewhere in the Punjab, on a river where the foothills of the Himalayas are visible in the distance.

Zarif, in his book, 'Two Months Leave',[31] says 'This was an excellent article, covering entirely new ground, in which the author showed, for the first time, probably, in the history of shikar, that there is a definite peculiar influence which man exerts over animals.

F. W. Champion in 'The Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow' [32] summarises - 'He (Bethell) had been watching some of these magnificent wild sheep at rather long range for hours on end waiting for a chance to shoot.

At long last he decided to risk the shot, and, simultaneously with his decision, the three Ammon, which had paid no attention to him all day, jumped to their feet, fully alert, even though he had not made the slightest sound or movement'.

A collection of short stories, including Adedoids, which refers to Frederick Marshman Bailey's under cover activities in what was to become Soviet Central Asia.

The Bat Artist, describes a hunting and trekking holiday in the previously Austrian South Tyrol, recently taken over by Italy in boundary changes following the First World War.

As often happens in Bethell's stories, the identity of this member of the party, who is sympathetic to Hitler's views, is covered by a pseudonym - "Brodie" - the 'Bat artist'.

Reaching the northern limit of their journey, they assess that any invasion through that route would be as doomed as they have been but they rescue 'Drummond' whom they find destitute and half-starved in a cave.

The story is based on Bethell's diary of the year, and includes many evocative and atmospheric diversions into the life of the jungle, the tribes, the little understood tribal rituals of birth and death.

One visualised the awful loneliness, with no man or woman to give him courage for the last ordeal, hold his hand, even bid him farewell, as he faced the ghouls pressing in on him.

With, in all probability, his lifetime's first genuine prayer, he would lay himself down, his hands outstretched to the sacrifice that bridged his dying life to an unknown and dark eternity.

'The Blind Road' received favourable critical reviews - the Observer of 1939, for example, writing "Until this book of Forepoint Severn's the North East Frontier has lacked its Herodotus and Xenophon, its Stevenson and Verne.

A change of underwear became a risky adventure, rarely to be indulged in; and since going to bed involved only the addition of more clothing to that of the day, the matter was steadily overlooked"[38] Bailey was a secret agent in China and Central Asia during the same era as Bethell was working in Assam - effectively playing his part in 'The Great Game', countering Russian influence on India's northern border.

It also simplified his travel to Blackwoods, where he was working full time - in fact, he used Paternoster Row as his correspondence address in some of the letters to Bailey.

He wrote of 'The Blind Road' at Hillfield - "Looking back on it now from the thickly carpeted dullness of an ultra-modern London flat, the policeman round the corner, and the din of motors and mechanised music everywhere, one discovers that there was a definite elation in that interminable period of starvation and uncertainty,"[36] At the outbreak of the Second World War, he would have been 60.

[40] On the night of Sunday December 29, 1940, Blackwoods head office in Paternoster Row was completely destroyed in World War II bombing raids.

Later he moved to a cottage - The Warren, Clun Road, Clunton, Craven Arms - with Doris Ball, who had been his neighbour at Hodne Farm.