Richard Sharpe was fed up. The army decided when he woke up, when he slept, when he ate, when he marched and when he was to sit about doing nothing and that was what he did most of the time, nothing. Hurry up and do nothing, that was the army's way of doing things, and he was fed up with it. He was bored and thinking of running. But half the natives were in British pay and would turn you in – and the other Indians were all fighting against the British and if he ran to them he would be forced to serve in their armies. So Sharpe kept on marching with the rest of the 33rd, heading for battle with the tiger troops of Mysore, the warriors of the Tipoo Sultan who was intent on driving the British from his land.

In this splendid tale of the Siege of Seringapatam, Bernard Cornwell takes Sharpe back to the time when he was an ordinary trooper, the King's shilling taken because he'd killed a man, ambition still to be awakened, subject to the whims of incompetent officers and the hatred of Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill.