Following in his father's footsteps, Robert Saxon leaves his troubled home to join the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich as a "snooker," a junior cadet. His ambition is to become an officer of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. With the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte rampaging across Europe, Britain needs more troops. At the Academy, Robert encounters more trouble in the form of bullying from the senior cadets, but is determined to see the course of study through to the end. After ten months of training, he and his comrades are commissioned into a newly raised artillery company, which soon joins an expeditionary force to Portugal. However, all is not well, for an unresolved conflict from the Academy has pursued Robert into the army. It is the beginning of the Peninsular War, and Robert realizes his only chance for survival in his chosen profession is success in battle. That battle will be joined near a small village called Vimeiro.