The year is 1824; the Sixth Light Dragoons are still stationed in India, and the talk in the officer's mess is of war. he Burmese are increasingly encroaching on Company land and skirmishes are becoming common on India's borders. Meanwhile across the country in Bhurtpoor the succession to the Raj has been usurped. The rightful claimant Balwant Sing has been forced from the throne by the war-mongerer Durjan Sal. The conflict looks set to flair up into bloody conflict, taking the surrounding provinces with it. With the threat of war on two fronts the British troops must intercede. he trial ahead will test Hervey and his newly blooded troop to their very limits, for Durjan Sal has taken refuge in the infamous fortress of Bhurtpoor. The fortress stands a little under five miles in perimeter, a deep ditch runs around it which can be flooded at a moment's notice, thirty-five turreted bastions rise from its thick and lofty walls. And as the Tower of Victory, built with the skulls of the Lord Lake's defeated men, bears witness, it has withstood all attacks made on it. But no fortress is impregnable, given the will, the wit and the means. Of one thing Hervey can be sure; the siege of Bhu