When William Dudley enlists as a private in the Royal Hampshire Fusiliers, he discovers that life in the army of Queen Victoria is not the romantic adventure he had expected. Transported to the Crimean Peninsula, his dreams of glory are confronted by the harsh reality of war and death.

Promoted to sergeant on the battlefield barely more than a year after his enlistment, Dudley must learn to command and inspire the soldiers he is called on to lead, and do so in the face of death and destruction beyond anything he had ever imagined.