Guns of Batasi depicts an erupting world where newly empowered forces, both black and white, embrace the realpolitik of a post-colonial world. A group of veteran British NCOs, headed by upright Regimental Sergeant Major Lauderdale (Richard Attenborough), becomes entangled with a coup in an unnamed African state, recently-independent and dogged by political intrigue. The unnamed country is evocative of Kenya in east Africa: RSM Lauderdale mentions the Turkana peoples (who live in Kenya), native soldiers speak in Kiswahili, the lingua franca of the Kenyan region, and aspects of the story echo Kenya's troubled post-independence era, including the 1957 Mau Mau Uprising. Throughout, the story contrasts professional British NCOs and their officers with the inexperienced African soldiers and their officers.
