The Regiment – the 19th Lancers – mattered to the Goffs, generation after generation, more than anything else.

From the Sudan to South Africa, from Flanders to Palestine – from the charge and skirmish on the open plain in the last outposts of the Empire, to the mud and stench of the trenches in the First World War, they continue to fight with ferocious intensity.

But even as Colby Goff rises to the rank of Field Marshal and Dabney receives the honours of a hero, they witness the decline of their beloved cavalry, as the horse and sword give way to the tank and machine gun.