The lives of three generations of a Wiltshire landed family are bound up with the British Army: firstly during the Indian Mutiny of the 1850s, then in the First World War. At a time when social status was everything in England, and considered even more important in India, the story follows the events that affect the family's fate. Mary, widow of a younger son who married beneath him, decides to sail for a better life in India and becomes mixed up in the war between the Indian and British regiments and is forced to flee for her life. The repercussions of her flight are felt more than 60 years later when the family is again tragically disrupted, this time by the Great War. Fascinating detail of 'upstairs and downstairs' during both wars provides the colourful background to this action-packed story, and sheds light on the complicated title succession quandaries of the times.