The hero of this adventure lives in Harbledown and attends the King’s School. His headmaster is Dr Wallace. He then goes out to the Crimea and fights in several battles and at the siege of Sebastopol. The novel was published in 1883.

Henty lived in Canterbury for a few years as a boy. In his first novel A Search for a Secret (1867) the narrator says “Although not born at Canterbury, I look upon it as my native town, my city of adoption” and mentions that his brother Harry went to the King’s School.