Paardeberg

A Boer War Novel

Thomas Kettle never wanted to be a soldier. He wanted to be left alone with other people's wallets.

Toronto, October 1899. The Empire is at war and the city has gone mad with recruiting fever. Twenty-year-old pickpocket Thomas Kettle doesn't care about the Queen, the Boers, or the Transvaal. He cares about the constable who's been closing in for weeks — and the stolen uniform that was supposed to be his ticket out of town, not his ticket to Africa.

Caught at the depot by a sergeant who sees straight through his lies, Kettle is given a choice: enlist or go to jail. He picks the army. He will regret this decision every single day for the next six months.

Pressed into G Company of the Royal Canadian Regiment, Kettle crosses the Atlantic on a ship that smells like a stable, marches across South Africa in boots that don't fit, and discovers that the army's idea of a reward for surviving a twenty-three-mile night march is getting shot at. His only talents — quick hands, a gift for theft, and an ability to lie under pressure — turn out to be surprisingly useful in a war zone. The soldiers love him. The sergeant who caught him does not.

At Paardeberg, where four thousand Boers are dug in along the Modder River and the Canadians are ordered to take them out, Kettle will face a night assault in absolute darkness, make a decision born of pure cowardice, and somehow end up shaking hands with the Prince of Wales.

He will carry the secret of what really happened for the rest of his life.

For fans of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman and Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels.

Canada at War — standalone military fiction. Each book covers a different Canadian battle. Read in any order.