As their ship docks in Bombay, news of the rising by the Indian mutineers, and their massacre of women, children, and civilians, reaches Anthony Morgan and his company. Even so, they're hardly prepared for what they now face in a country so unknown to them, where they find it hard to understand who is friend or foe among the native troops.

In reality, Morgan himself is more interested in another quest. On discovering that the son he fathered, his child's mother and her husband, Morgan's old sergeant, are captives up in the hills - where Rhani of Jansi is building up her force against old comers - he is determined to find a way to rescue them and return them to safety.

Dust and Steel is a gripping tale of one of the great challenges to the Victorian Empire, and the difficult dilemmas of a soldier torn between orders and honor.