A decorated veteran of the Royal Flying Corps, Mackrell was a tea plantation overseer in his mid-fifties, with a taste for adventure. Hearing that the Chaukan party was stranded by the monsoon, he knew of only one way to save the fever-weakened and starving refugees. Mackrell undertook a rescue mission given no chance of success by the authorities. The astonishing true story of a middle-aged tea planter, Gyles Mackrell, who mounted an epic rescue mission, with the aid of a herd of elephants and their mahouts.