In October 1917 the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade took part in what is now known as the 'last great cavalry charge'. They charged across six kilometres of open ground before capturing, in a desperate hand-to-hand battle, the Turkish trenches that held the key to the strategic stronghold of Beersheba. Paul Daley's account of this battle takes him from Australia to Israel, from past to present, and from the battlefields to the archives, where he discovers a dark episode in Australian history that sits at odds with the Anzac myth.