Malky Dalgleish and four highland Scots, who befriend him on the battlefield at Dunbar, arrive in South Sheels in November 1650, as indentured servants to work in the salt-panns. After Cromwell's victory in the battle, they had been marched from Dunbar to Durham in the infamous death march, the survivors of which were sold by General Haselrig; mostly to work in the colonies in the New World, but forty to go to Sheels. This is the story of five Scots lads who work and suffer in the salt-panns. Malky and Davey find love of a sort with two Sheels lasses, and also become involved in smuggling from the caves of Harton and Marsden; Niall escapes to work on the keels; little Dougie, the boy fifer, is not strong enough for the work in the panns and is taken into service; Tomag distils his own usquebah (whisky).