After surviving the Zulu campaign, Simon Fonthill and ‘352’ Jenkins are sent almost immediately to another volatile frontier. In 1879 they travel through British India toward Afghanistan, where Fonthill must enter hostile tribal country, gather intelligence and discover the intentions of forces preparing to challenge the British. Capture exposes him to brutal interrogation, while the information he carries may determine whether British troops can survive the next stage of the campaign.
The story unfolds during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the conflict in which British forces returned to Kabul after the destruction of the residency and fought to secure their position before the march to Kandahar. Frederick Roberts is among the real commanders behind the campaign. Wilcox uses the mountain frontier, tribal politics and the precarious work of military intelligence to show a very different kind of imperial warfare from the massed battles of Zululand.
