Bhowani Junction

Victoria had earlier decided to escape the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Anglo-Indian community by becoming a Women's Auxiliary Corps (India) officer at army headquarters.

She decides to get engaged to the gentle and serious Ranjit in an attempt to become assimilated in wider Indian society—since British rule is visibly on its way out—but then she realises that such a marriage would require her to give up her name (and, essentially, her identity).

Victoria originally dislikes Savage as hard and cruel but eventually becomes both his lover and his unofficial adjutant in the last hectic days of British rule in India.

[citation needed] Throughout the book the British are shown striving to support and sustain the Congress Party and its leader Mahatma Gandhi, who for so long they had been opposed to.

To get a geographical bearing on the story it should be imagined to be about where Jhansi really is - 25.27 N., 78.33 E."[2] The book is one of a series of historical novels written by John Masters, set in India and involving several generations of the fictional Savage family.

Some locations, such as the Tree of the Silver Guru, appear in both novels (although the railway, which has a major role in Bhowani Junction, was in the earlier book a metalled road).