Showing results by author "Nigel Seed" in All Categories

Found guilty of stealing bread to feed his starving family, Michael McGuire is offered the “Queen’s Hard Bargain”, go to prison or join the army. He chooses the army and, after training in Dublin Castle, his life is changed forever as he is selected to join the Gordon Relief Expedition that is being sent south of Egypt to Khartoum, in the Sudan.

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.

Only just recovered from his wounds, Captain McGuire must now sail south to the confusion and error of the Boer War. After his return from the war in the Sudan, McGuire had expected to spend time recovering with his family. It was not to be, and his regiment is called urgently to South Africa to counter the threat from the Boers. Disparaged as mere farmers, the Boers were to administer a savage lesson to the British Army.

Michael McGuire has left the army, but as the First World War breaks out his country calls him again. At the start of the war the British expand their army rapidly, but there is a shortage of experienced officers and McGuire is needed. He is sent to Gallipoli in command of an Australian battalion that suffers badly in that debacle. He stays with them when their bloody road takes them to the mud and carnage of the western front.

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.

1805. Napoleon’s plan to invade England failed, when his navy was defeated at Trafalgar and unable to take command of the English Channel. A ship from Nelson’s fleet carrying despatches spotted the French on the way to Brest and warned the Admiralty in London. But what might have happened if they had not been spotted? What if Admiral Villeneuve had taken control of the channel for long enough to allow the invasion fleet to sail? Would the military genius of Napoleon have triumphed and allowed him to conquer those damp islands off his coast?

Major Jim Wilson, late of the Royal Engineers, has been obliged to leave the rapidly shrinking British Army. He needs a job but they are thin on the ground even for a highly capable Army Officer. Then he is offered the chance to go to Northern Germany to search for the last great secret of World War ll, a hidden U Boat base. Once he unravels the mystery he is asked to help to spirit two submarines away from under the noses of the German government, to be the central exhibits in a Russian museum. But then the betrayal begins and a seventy year old horror unfolds.

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.

A prime minister acting strangely and world peace in the balance. Following his return from Washington, the prime minister’s behavior has changed. Based on his previous relationship with the PM, Major Jim Wilson is called in to investigate. What he finds is shocking and threatens the peace of the world. But now he must find a way to put things right, and there is very little time to do it. His small team sets out on a dangerous quest that takes them from the hills of Cumbria to the Cayman Islands and Dubai, but others are watching and playing for high stakes.

In 1940, with the British army in disarray after the evacuation from Dunkirk, invasion seemed a very real possibility. As a precaution, the government decided to protect the national gold reserves by sending most of the bullion to Canada on fast ships that ran the gauntlet of the U boat fleets. But a lot of gold bars and other treasures were hidden in England. In the fog of war, this treasure was lost. Now, finally, a clue has emerged that might lead to the hiding place. The government needs the gold back if the country is not to plunge into a huge financial crisis.

America is under attack and this time the military, despite their power and courage, are helpless. Simon Drummer is on loan from MI6 to a bio-warfare protection unit in the USA when the terror they fear becomes real. A brilliant Arabic bio-chemist is driven to bring an end to the suffering of his countrymen. He believes that the regime that oppresses them could not exist without the support of the US government and the weapons they furnish. He needs to bring the truth to the American people in a way that will grab their attention.

It is 1860. The men and women who run from human bondage in the southern USA know only too well the inconceivable brutality that awaits them, if they are captured. Silas Carter draws on all his reserves of courage and puts his life on the line to escape the horror of slavery by riding the Underground Railroad. His courage is called on again as the Civil War breaks out in1861. He supports the Union and fights on the bloody battlefields to free his people from their savage enslavement on the Fields of Pain.