The time is 1867.
The place, Ethiopia.
The mad Emperor Theodore of Ethiopia is holding fifty-six Europeans captive in his remote fortress of Magdala.
Dando and his band of soldiers must come to the rescue.
The Anglo-Indian army, forced to march 400 miles through unmapped wilderness, with rations and water running out, attempt an impossible rescue.
Time is against them…
The incensed Emperor threatens to butcher his prisoners if the British continued to advance…
Rifleman at the Ready is an all action novel of violent adventure, vividly showning through the eyes of Joseph Dando what it was really like to be an ordinary ‘soldier of the Queen’, in the days when the British Empire was being won with blood, sweat and raw courage.
This book was previously published as Dando And The Mad Emperor under the pseudonym William Clive.
Praise for Ronald Bassett
‘One of the most impressive things I found about the book was that you got a real feel for the time and place. Scenes set in India or England felt different and I think that's a great achievement.’ – Library Thing
‘vividly described … the voyage as seen through the sleep-robbed eyes of matelots and officers alike’ - Daily Telegraph
‘A catalogue of horror’ Eastern Daily Press
‘There is a degree of authenticity that makes the blood run cold’ Cambridge News
‘Fast, vigorous action’ Sheffield Morning Telegraph
‘Graphic tale of slave and convict ships… not for tender stomachs’ Books and Bookmen
Ronald Bassett was born in 1924 in Chelsea. During the Munich crisis, at age fourteen, he falsified enlistment papers to become a Rifleman of the King's Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles). Following active service, he was exposed and discharged. In his records, his colonel noted, ‘A good soldier. I am sorry to lose him.' Undismayed, he immediately entered the Royal Navy, in which he remained for fourteen years, serving in the Arctic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, the Far East and, later, Korea. He died in 1996 in Surrey. He wrote numerous works of historical fiction, sometimes under the pseudonym of ‘William Clive’ and won a number of awards for his medical and pharmaceutical writing. His other titles are The Tinfish Run, The Neptune Landing, The Pierhead Jump, Fortune Favours the Brave, The Amorous Trooper and Rebecca’s Brat.
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