Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in War & Military

1794: In the wake of the Glorious First of June, Lieutenant John Pearce has pressing matters to attend to. He must undertake an urgent commission from Lord Hood, track down midshipman Toby Burns, and placate Emily Barclay. Meanwhile smugglers whose ship Pearce inadvertently stole, are on his tail. And it is not only John Pearce who has his fair share of trouble. The triumphant Channel Fleet returns, but the battle is already the subject of controversy - and Ralph Barclay is accused of holding back from the action.

John Pearce, having negotiated the highly questionable sale of the two French prizes taken in The Devil to Pay, has left HMS Flirt, as well as the crew and the wounded Henry Digby in Brindisi, and is headed for Naples to see his lover. In an uncomfortable journey, he seeks to work out a way to best both Admiral Sir William Hotham and Captain Ralph Barclay, men who are his sworn enemies. All his calculations are thrown into turmoil when he discovers that Emily is pregnant.

September 1914. The First World War has broken out on the Western Front. Thousands of miles away on the Rhodesian border, Simon Fonthill is preparing for battle alongside his companion, 352 Jenkins and tracker Mzingeli. The trio come under constant fire from enemy forces. At the bequest of Admiral Herbert King-Hall, they undertake their most dangerous mission yet: sinking the Königsberg, a German cruiser ship hidden deep in the Rufiji Delta.

Who can Flavius Belisarius call an enemy? The Goths he must fight to take Italy back for the Byzantium. Or is it the intrigues of the Empress Theodora, who fears his ambitions. There is his own wife, betraying him in more than one way and Justinian, the unreliable emperor he helped to the throne. Sixth-century Byzantium, a hotbed of intrigue; Italy and Persia where he must combat some of his fellow generals.

Ardnish, 1944. On his deathbed, Donald John Gillies sends for a priest to hear his last confession. Waiting anxiously for the priest, his mind travels back to the dusty plains of South Africa in 1901, where he fought as a Lovat Scout during the Boer War and where he met the woman who was the love of his life. Forced to abandon her and her young daughter in a British concentration camp, DJ returns to Scotland and his old life after his camp is ambushed by Boers and many of his fellow soldiers are massacred.

Fifth century of the Byzantium Empire. Flavius Belisaurius is son of the governor of Dorostorum City, and his father has two goals: to keep out the barbarians and to expose the deep roots of secular and ecclesiastical corruption. Seeking to prevent a raid, the Governor enlists the help of the powerful magnate, Senuthius Vicinus. Vicinus's corruption is widespread but his support is crucial to win the battle.

1935: Cal Jardine is a soldier of fortune. Forced to leave Hamburg, he is recruited by a secretive British committee to smuggle guns to Abyssinia. But first Jardine must procure the weapons from Romania. Taken to the Horn of Africa, the arms are then transported over a harsh landscape into the hands of the Ethiopian Army.

The Hundred Years’ War is over and newly-knighted Sir John Hawkwood is headed for France to make his fortune as a freebooter. Violence and extortion are rife, and the freebooters will stop at nothing to capture the Papal City of Avignon. This is only the beginning. Italy beckons, and with it, yet more battles against rival mercenaries, powerful cities and the Papal State.

Justinian, the Byzantine emperor, is desperate to revive the empire's glory. Among his actions to this effect is the dispatch of his brave general, Belisaurius, to fight the Persians in the East. But Justinian fights paranoia and grows concerned that Belisaurius will become a threat to his power and person.

1938: As Hitler sets his sights on the Sudetenland, not everyone in Britain is willing to appease him. Convinced that the fürher’s land hunger is insatiable, the head of the SIS recruits Cal Jardine to help him prove that Czechoslovakia is threatened with invasion. Before heading undercover to Prague, however, Jardine must first extricate himself from France, where his attempts to smuggle guns to Spain have been held up by a group of fanatical fascists. Finally arriving in Czechoslovakia, working undercover for the SIS proves no less dangerous.