Terence O'Brien, a young Australian, had already survived a full tour of bombing missions with Coastal Command, and should have been resting from operations at the RAF's request, when he volunteered to join the Chindits - army units operating behind enemy lines in Burma who depended on air communications for their very existence. This is O'Brien's memoir of his days with the 4/9th Gurkhas in the remote mountainous region between northern Burma and Yannan - among the strangest and most exacting military undertakings of World War II. The author has written two other autobiographical war books - "Chasing After Danger" and "The Moonlight War".