Sharpe's mission has seemed capture a small unguarded French coastal fort, cripple Napoleon's supply lines, and retreat across the sea. But behind the lines, Sharpe's old enemy, Pierre Ducos, awaits Sharpe's arrival with a battalion of French soldiers and a vicious commanding general who keeps the scalps of his dead enemies as trophies.

Outmaneuvered by Ducos's treachery and abandoned by his own navy, Sharpe has only two to escape with the aid of the charming, unscrupulous American mercenary, Cornelius Killick, or die.