For Omerao, a King's commission in the navy is part of a journey of self discovery, drawing on his Pashtun tribe's migration out of the mountains of Waziristan, to the Bastis shaped in battles with the Sikhs and Hindus of Jullundur. Omerao's bemused trek through WW II and the curtain call of the British Raj, gives way to a growing self confidence and resolve as events sweep all before him.