Jason Rance, an officer in a wartime Gurkha battalion, involved in the deaths or capture of four Malaya-born members of the Indian National Army, returns to Malaya in 1948 in a new Gurkha battalion where he is operationally engaged in fighting the Communist guerillas. The parents of the four dead men find out how Rance was involved with their sons' deaths and plan revenge. Meanwhile, a member of the Chinese Communist party visiting the Malayan Communists decides not to return to China and Rance attempts to extract him from across the Thai border in a fashion that nearly sees him court-martialled. Rance must collaborate with the Temiar, an indigenous people living deep in the Malayan jungle, and only the skill of a Gurkha saves him from being killed by four poisoned blowpipe darts.