Soldier Of The Queen Books

1877: When his family loses their home, to Jack Roberts, who has grown up hearing stories of the Crimean war and the magnificent charge of the Heavy Brigade, the choice between working in a dangerous factory or enlisting in the army and putting on the famed red uniform is an easy one. But when fighting for Queen and Country takes him far from home and defending a small mission station from overwhelming numbers, it is anything but easy and bravery and stoicism take on new meaning.

The British Army at the end of the nineteenth century was not a fair place. Despite the reforms, a bad officer could still ruin men’s lives and Jack Roberts discovers that despite being a hero of Rorke’s Drift, that means nothing when a superior has influence. He becomes a soldier serving in the Egyptian campaign where he learns not only new skills but how to deal with the new responsibility fatherhood brings. Throughout it all one thing is constant, he is a soldier of the queen, a redcoat with a rifle.

Being a soldier of the queen at the end of the nineteenth century meant spending much of your time abroad. Jack Roberts is a hero and a good soldier but he is torn between his career and his son who is looked after in England. When the Mahdists begin to enlarge their empire Jack is recalled to the desert regiment he helped to form. Fighting behind enemy lines where nature is as much an enemy as the fierce Dervishes, Jack begins the campaign that will, ultimately, lead to the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.

Jack Roberts is back from the Sudan and with a crippling wound, no longer an active soldier. When he is sent to Iran to help find oil for British battleships he has to leave home once more. This time he leaves a son who is about to embark on a military career too. The Roberts family is soon going to war again.

Griff Roberts and the Desert Group find themselves the only British soldiers guarding a huge piece of Egyptian desert. When foreign powers begin to encroach on the land and to raid the caravans it is up to the beleaguered garrison of Fort Farafra to do something about it. Fighting ambush, nature and violent sandstorms the camel riding soldiers are tested to their very limit.