Burma,1933. The British administration is facing an insurrection that threatens to escalate out of control unless the source can be traced and eradicated. Caspasian is sent north to Mandalay with two companies of Gurkhas to track down the mysterious Li Yu, a Chinese revolutionary who operates from a base deep in Tibet.
Accompanying him is the eccentric Lady Manningham and the Reverend William Bradley, a veteran and friend of Caspasian’s from the disastrous Gallipoli campaign of 1915.
But both Manningham and Bradley are hiding a secret dating back to the Great War; back to the bullet-swept ravines of Gallipoli’s Cape Helles.
As the pursuit of Li Yu takes the expedition into the Chinese province of Yunnan en route to the Tibetan plateau, ghosts from the past are calling. For the secret is more terrible than anything taking place in colonial Burma – and could explain the failure of the Gallipoli operation itself, blowing apart the credibility and standing of the Empire.