In Badajoz during the Christmas of 1826 Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons is a prisoner of the Spanish incarcerated in the infamous fortress of Badajoz. As he plans his escape his thoughts return to the year 1812 when he was a cornet in Wellingtons Peninsula Army. He & the Sixth had survived Corunna to endure three more years of brutal fighting that would culminate in one of the most vital & vicious confrontations of the campaign
- the siege of Badajoz. While Hervey paces his prison cell & re-lives the bloodshed of battles past friends from expected quarters rush to his aid... As good on the details of the workings of a cavalry regiment in 1820 as ever Patrick OBrian was on the workings of an 1820 warship."
- " Spectator"."