The Boer War with the Horse Gunners
Erskine Childers, the famed author of the classic novel of sailing and spying 'The Riddle of the Sands' served with London's finest-The City Imperial Volunteers within its artillery arm-associated with the Honourable Artillery Company. Childers-together with his enthusiastic colleagues from the professions of the city were keen to fight the Boers of South Africa and he has written an engaging and detailed account of his time with the regiment during the war. It is written in an easy informal style-of the kind that has ensured that his better known...

The Boer War with the Horse Gunners
Erskine Childers, the famed author of the classic novel of sailing and spying 'The Riddle of the Sands' served with London's finest-The City Imperial Volunteers within its artillery arm-associated with the Honourable Artillery Company. Childers-together with his enthusiastic colleagues from the professions of the city were keen to fight the Boers of South Africa and he has written an engaging and detailed account of his time with the regiment during the war. It is written in an easy informal style-of the kind that has ensured that his better known...

The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service is an early example of the espionage novel, with a strong underlying theme of militarism. Carruthers, a minor official in the Foreign Office is contacted by an acquaintance, Davies, asking him to join in a yachting holiday in the German Frisian islands. Carruthers agrees, as his other plans for a holiday have fallen through. He arrives to find that Davies has a small sailing boat, not the comfortable crewed yacht that he expected. Davies gradually reveals that he suspects that the Germans are undertaking something sinister in the area

When Charles Carruthers receives a letter from a university friend Arthur Davies asking if he wants to join him yachting in the Frisian Islands off the northern coast of Germany, he envisions a pleasant holiday from his job in the Foreign Office. Upon arriving, he finds that the 'yacht' is a converted life boat with no other crew other than the two of them, and that his friend's plan is to chart the channels and islands of the shore against the possibility of war with Germany. As the season advances and the weather worsens, it becomes clear that there is a deeper secret hidden in the off...