Thomas Mason Trilogy

It is 1843 and to avoid the hangman’s noose two brothers flee from England. The first available ship out of Liverpool takes them to India where they join the army of the East India Company. Even before they have finished basic training they are marched north to the Punjab to face the most professional native army in India – the Sikhs. The British will now face their most severe test in the sub-continent and the brothers must stand in the firing lines to survive.

1854. Thomas Mason has returned from India where he served in the East India Company Army throughout the First and Second Anglo-Sikh wars. He and three companions returned to England as the guard detail for the Koh-i-Nor diamond and were then offered the chance to join the Rifle Brigade with their officer Lieutenant Warren. All of them have agreed, but had to return to basic training to learn the ways of their new regiment. In India, Thomas rose to Corporal, but must now return to the bottom of the rank ladder.

1857. The carnage of the Crimean War is over and the Rifle Brigade returns to peacetime soldiering, but then the word comes from India that the Sepoy regiments of the East India Company have mutinied, and the jewel in the crown of the British Empire is in danger of being lost. The Rifle Brigade embark for India, but there is a long sea voyage ahead of them. In the meantime the British soldiers already in India must hold out against vastly superior numbers. And so the bloodbath begins.