After years of jungle service, Jason Rance, a maverick Chinese-speaking British major of Gurkhas has one final chance of qualifying for promotion to lieutenant colonel. During a covert operation on the Thai-Malayan border, Rance meets a Chinese schoolboy friend from jungle-operation days and together they must pit Malaya's orang asli, or indigenous people, against Chin Peng and the Malayan Communists, now hiding in south Thailand, trying to rescue...