Newly promoted, Major Richard Sharpe leads a small force into the biting mountain cold, his task to rescue a group of well-born women held hostage by a rabble of deserters including Sergeant Hakeswill, his greatest enemy. The rescue is the least of his problems as, with only the support of his own company and the new Rocket Troop, the last word in military incompetence, to back his gamble, he cannot recognise even the prospect of defeat. To surrender or fail, would mean the end of the war for the Allied armies.