From the author of the Whitbread Award winning The Last King of Scotland, comes a spellbinding tale of a town under siege in colonial Africa and a young woman who finds love and freedom in the midst of a devastating war.
The year is 1899, and the South African town of Ladysmith is surrounded by Boer forces. For four long months bread is thickened with laundry starch and soldier s horses are killed for meat; daily bombings destroy homes and businesses, forcing the town s inhabitants into tunnels and makeshift shelters; and soldiers and townspeople alike are hideously wounded by...

When the First World War breaks out, the British navy is committed to engaging the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship--even if the body of water in question is a remote African lake and the enemy an intimidating fleet of German steamers. The leader of this improbable mission is Geoffrey Spicer-Simson whose navy career thus far had been distinguished by two sinkings. His seemingly impossible charge: to trek overland through the African bush hauling Mimi and Toutou--two forty-foot mahogany gunboats-with a band of cantankerous, insubordinate Scotsmen, Irishmen and Englishmen to defeat...