This detail from a painting by Orlando Norie gives a clear and detailed idea of how the 9th Lancers would have looked as they marched to Kabul in September 1879. The picture would have been based on descriptions. The central figure is an officer wearing a khaki tunic with dress breeches and boots. He seems to have a gold laced dress pouch-belt and gold slings for his undress sabretache. He has a brown leather waist-belt that has no apparent function. Norie has given him a beard but this was the beginning of the campaign, and although they had been in India since 1875 the regiment would not have allowed beards.
The other ranks are shown also wearing khaki tunics with dress breeches and boots. The helmets are questionable as a photo taken in 1880 shows sergeants wearing white helmets with spikes, but the painting shows khaki helmets with spikes. It is possible that the white helmets were reserved for parades and khaki helmets worn on the march, but the latter would not have had spikes. Swords are shown as slung from the waist and kept in brown leather scabbards with white metal fittings. The figures on the extreme left and right carry carbines. Martini-Henry carbines were issued to the 9th Lancers for the first time, in 1878 when they were first mobilised for active service. The regimental history says that the carbines replaced the men’s pistols.
