Afghanistan 1879. Britain fights to keep Russia out of India. Peter Rutland, newly commissioned into the Royal Artillery, has been posted to Kurram with his Battery of 'Screw Guns'. Peter is puzzled that his father, a retired Major who had served in Afghanistan in 1840, asks him to resign his commission. The reason is a 'curse' on the Rutland name. "When your blood returns, it will darken the stones of our valley." This courageous and inexperienced officer embarks on a hazardous mission to return a precious holy relic to the religous Afghan clerics. The second in the Rutland Series is 'Rutland's Guns' based on the Boer War in South Africa 1898-1902. Available from Amazon Details are on www.roger-carpenter.co.uk