In a subplot, Neliah, a Herero living in Portuguese Northern Angola (Southern Angola of the Benguela Railway was "appropriated" by the Reich in 1949) with her sister, Zuri, as well as members of the Resistencia, a Portuguese anti-Nazi insurgent group, are sent on a trek to Luanda in the face of a German invasion and, more personally, the potential for deportation to Deutsch Westafrika.

Colloquially known as "Muspel", all African blacks in German territories have been deported there as part of the Nazi racial purification policy.

Forced to flee from the Kongo after a failed attempt to steal a Luftwaffe plane from an airbase that is fighting a Belgian-French insurgency, Burton and Patrick head for their agent in Stanleystadt, the capital of German Afrika (apparently the site of Stanleyville), who is a Frenchman named Rougier.

Captured by a German conscription gang while attempting to escape to Neu Berlin, Burton and Patrick are taken south along the Pan-African Autobahn (PAA, or Road of Friendship) to the North Angolan border, where they are separated.

However, they still manage to reach Luanda, which holds out, thanks to an agreement between Afrika Korps commander Field Marshal von Arnim and the Portuguese governors.

Entering Luanda's sewers, Burton, Patrick and Neliah make for the docks to get on a tug, which will take them to a waiting Royal Navy ship.

Neliah, defiant to the end, remains to fend off Uhrig, who has pursued them and presumably dies in the final defense of Luanda.

Burton, the son of a German settler in Togoland and a British woman, lived in an orphanage in the jungle after the Great War.

Looking back at the spot on which his best friend and worst enemy died and at the ruins of Luanda, Burton contemplates his return to Madeleine, his lover in Suffolk.

[5] A review in Publishers Weekly described it as "tremendously satisfying", stating "Saville gets everything right—providing suspenseful action sequences, logical but enthralling plot twists, a fully thought through imaginary world, and characters with depth.

[7] A review in Christian Science Monitor praised Saville's "meticulous research" however stated the book "never quite rises above the level of an airport bookstore bestseller – a fun read, but not truly outstanding.