When the Battle of Waterloo concluded on June 18, 1815, one era ended and another began, yet it took three days for five men to bring confirmation of Wellington's triumph over Napoleon to London. A winner of the Orwell Prize and the Crime Writers' Association Non-Fiction Gold Dagger for The Case of Stephen Lawrence, Brian Cathcart draws on untapped records, visits the battlefield, and retraces the messengers' routes, to show how these stalwart individuals carried the momentous news from Belgium, making feverish horseback journeys, a Channel crossing delayed by falling tides and a flat calm, and the final dash from Dover to a grand soirée in St. James's Square.