Publisher's Synopsis
The jungle fort of Houi-Ninh, its back to the swift and mighty river Meh Song, its front and flanks to the illimitable Annamese jungle, stood like a little rock, almost submerged beneath a deep green sea. Behind it, a theoretically pacified land of peaceful if resentful villages, set in rice-field, forest, plain and swamp; before it, the unconquerable jungle, its dank and gloomy depths the home and defence of fierce swift jungle-men, predatory, savage, and devilishly cruel. And beyond that vast uncharted sea of densest forest and impenetrable swamp, a further terra incognita; and then China, inimical, enigmatic and sinister. The little jungle fort was strong, the foundations of its walls great boulders of stone, the walls themselves dried mud and great baulks of mahogany, its vast and heavy iron- wood gate secured by huge steel bars which were lengths of railway-line. Within the square of walls was the low oblong white-washed caserne containing the chambrée in which the men slept, the store-room, the cook-house, the non- commissioned officers' quarters, and the office-bedroom of the Commandant.
