Cecil Louis Troughton Smith was born in 1899 and by the mid-1920s was penning novels under the name Cecil Smith (later “C.S.”) Forester. Over his career, he published 38 novels, including 17 in his famous Horatio Hornblower series about a British naval officer during the Napoleonic era. Many of his novels became films, including 1951’s The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, and the 2020 movie about World War II ship convoys, Greyhound, featuring Tom Hanks and based on Forester’s novel The Good Shepherd. During the Second World War, Forester came to America, where he wrote propaganda in support of the British war effort and, later, screenplays for Hollywood. He also wrote two plays and 13 nonfiction books. Forester died in 1966.

Dodd is a private in the 95th Regiment of Foot—the famed Rifle Brigade—who becomes trapped behind enemy lines during a late-1810 engagement between French and British forces involved in the lengthy Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. A five-year veteran of many engagements, Dodd is a sharpshooter trained in the use of the rifle, a weapon much more accurate and powerful than a