The story of a boy who comes into manhood during war, this book follows an illiterate European child who is stranded on the southern tip of Africa. As the British and the Xhosa have been engaged in battle for 80 years, the young man signs up for the conflict in the hope of steady meals and a few shillings a month. His new commander, the Captain—hardly more than a boy himself—commands an assortment of convicts, sailors, and drunkards culled from the port at the Cape of Good Hope. While the group travels through a landscape prowled by wild beasts, the distinction between man and animal becomes increasingly blurred. Based on firsthand accounts of the 8th Xhosa War, this book converts the bare facts into something terrible and strange.