This dramatized and historically correct novel follows Patrick Murtagh, who as a poor Irish boy joins the British Army in 1820. After serving in India, he is discharged into the famines of the 1940s in Ireland. As a man of 'good character' he is able to re-join the Army in 1847 and come to New Zealand with his family, and with the offer of his own cottage and schooling for his children, as a Fencible Corp soldier. In exchange for guarding Auckland for seven years for the first time in his life he will own something he cannot carry - his own land. After seven years of service he is discharged and in 1860 moves south to Green Island, Dunedin, with his family, to buy his own small farm and become an Otago pioneer.