Vienna 1954, nine years after the end of World War II and the victorious allies occupy the whole of Austria. Newly commissioned national serviceman and Fulham boy, Rory Trenchard, joins his regiment, The Hambleshires, in Vienna at the very height of the Cold War. At nineteen he finds himself not only learning the tough art of soldiering alongside his platoon of Battle hardened Korean War veterans but is also exposed to the political machinations that exist between Britain and her Allies. Vienna in 1954 is a dangerous place and in addition to honing his skills as a warrior he is trusted to act as a go-between when a senior KGB officer plans to defect to the west. He also falls in and out of love with an American girl and faces the choice of either just completing two years national service, or becoming a regular officer.

Harry Turner was born in 1935 and served as a Second Lieutenant in the First Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (The Diehards) from 1953 to 1955. He was Managing Director of Television South West from 1985 to 1992 and a director of ITN Independent Television News from 1987 to 1992. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and author of ten previous books including: _With the Utmost Possible Dispatch: Poems of Nelson's Navy_ (Spellmount Publishers) _Against All Hazards: Poems of the Peninsular War_ (Spellmount Publishers) _Wrapped in Whirlwinds: Poems of the Crimean War_ (Spellmount Publishers) _A Short History of the Middlesex Regiment_ (Brampton Press) _Courage, Blood and Luck, Poems of Waterloo_ (Pen and Sword) _Ebony and Scarlet, Poems of the Anglo Zulu War_ (Pen and Sword)