The Crimean War has ended at last, and Phillip Hazard finds himself in China, serving under the fiery Commodore Keppel. The British pull off a rousing victory against a Chinese junk fleet at Fatsham Creek, but later Hazard is dismayed to hear of the Great Mutiny in India. Worried that his two sisters are caught up in the brutal conflict, he joins British relief forces fighting to reach the besieged northern Indian towns of Cawnpore and Lucknow.