Strange men they were-soldiers, mercenaries, free-booters. Europeans all, braving the heat and dust of India. They fought for wealth, glory and sheer fun. Their glorious and inglorious exploits are full of thrill, romance and violence.

Ruskin Bond has recreated the turbulent and colourful India of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the soldiers of fortune strutting across the subcontinent. The saga of their lives and loves in Delhi, Jaipur, Aligarh, Sardhana and Lucknow reads stranger than fiction.