The Lotus and the Wind
by John Masters
It is 1881 and Britain and Russia face each other across the North West Frontier. The prize is that great jewel of Asia which Britain treasures and Russia covets - India - and in between lie the deserts of Afghanistan, Persia, Turkestan... Under stigma of coward ice in action, a young Gurkha officer, Robin Savage, is sent as a spy to uncover a Russian plan of invasion. He follows the trail of a murdered agent thousands of miles over plains, mountains and lonely deserts where the merest whisper seems an intrusion... where only a man like Savage, whose strange affinity for solitude cuts himoff fro in his follow men, could ever feel at home...