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Christmas 1826 finds Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons alone and a prisoner. Captured by the Spanish, he is locked up in the notorious fortress of Badajoz, with the little means of outside communication, his Prayer Book his only mental sustenance.
He must escape, but as Hervey lays his plans his thoughts return to 1812, when as a young cornet he was here with Wellington's Peninsular Army. Having survived the terrible retreat to Corruna, Hervey and the Sixth had gone on to endure three more years of fighting-which included the British Army's biggest general action since the Duke of Malborough's days, at Talavera - only to be stalled at Badajoz.
Badajoz: a fortress of huge strategic importance, where two sieges had already failed, and where French resistance was as it bloodiest. No one - from the Duke of Wellingtonto the most lowly cornet - was in any doubt that in order to defeat Napoleon they must carry the day. As the young Hervey and his comrades prepared for the third and final attack on the fortress, the only options left were death or glory.
What Hervey cannot know, as he paces his prison cells fourteen years later, is that in Lisbon, his close friends - including the beautiful Isabella Delgado - are rushing to his aid. The escape they plan is audacious in the extreme...
He must escape, but as Hervey lays his plans his thoughts return to 1812, when as a young cornet he was here with Wellington's Peninsular Army. Having survived the terrible retreat to Corruna, Hervey and the Sixth had gone on to endure three more years of fighting-which included the British Army's biggest general action since the Duke of Malborough's days, at Talavera - only to be stalled at Badajoz.
Badajoz: a fortress of huge strategic importance, where two sieges had already failed, and where French resistance was as it bloodiest. No one - from the Duke of Wellingtonto the most lowly cornet - was in any doubt that in order to defeat Napoleon they must carry the day. As the young Hervey and his comrades prepared for the third and final attack on the fortress, the only options left were death or glory.
What Hervey cannot know, as he paces his prison cells fourteen years later, is that in Lisbon, his close friends - including the beautiful Isabella Delgado - are rushing to his aid. The escape they plan is audacious in the extreme...