Dangerous Frontiers · Campaigning in Somaliland and Oman

In Part 1 of his book the author describes his life as a young officer in the Somaliland Scouts in the (then) British Protectorate of Somaliland. At that time tribal quarrels, generally over water, were taking place in the troubled strip of country between the Protectorate and Ethiopia; the Ogaden. It was the Scouts’ difficult task to keep the warring clansmen apart. It gives a vivid account of a nineteen-year-old in command of Somali troops in a fascinating and unpredictable country.

The second part of the book deals with the Author’s second period of service with Muslims, a quarter of a century later. This time in the Southern Province of Oman - Dhofar. Here he commanded the Northern Frontier Regiment of the Sultan’s Armed Force in a limited but fierce war against Communist Insurgents. It shows how the tide was turned against a brave enemy fighting on their home ground - the savage wadis and cliffs of the jebel.

Sir Martin Frobisher was one of the great sea dogs of Elizabethan England. He was a pirate and a privateer - he looted countless ships and was incarcerated by the Portuguese as a young man - and he aided Sir Francis Drake in one of his most daring voyages to attack the Spanish in the West Indies. But Frobisher was also a warrior who was knighted for his services against the Spanish Armada, and he was an explorer. He was the first Englishman to attempt to find the fabled Northwest Passage to Cathay to China. He commanded three voyages into the uncharted northern wastes Canada and Greenland and devoted eighteen years of his life to this dream. Taliesin Trows new biographical study of this many-sided Elizabethan adventurer should revive interest in him and in this extraordinary period in English seafaring history. For Frobisher was a fascinating, enigmatic character whose reputation is often eclipsed by those of his remarkable contemporaries, Drake, Hawkins and Ralegh.