The gathering might of revolutionary France prepares to engulf Europe in another bloody war. As in the past, Britain will stand or fall by the fighting power of her fleet. For Richard Bolitho, the renewal of hostilities means a fresh command and the chance of action after long months of inactivity. However, his mission to support Lord Hood in the monarchist-inspired occupation of Toulon has gone awry. Bolitho and the crew of the Hyperion are trapped by the French near a dry Mediterranean island.
A troubled peace with France means that in the harbours and estuaries around England, the royal fleet has been left to rot. Even a frigate captain as famous as Richard Bolitho is forced to swallow his pride and visit the Admiralty daily to plead for a ship. As the clouds of war begin to rise once more over the Channel, he has no choice but to accept an appointment to the Nore.
OCTOBER 1789, NEW SOUTH WALES. Into Sydney, capital of Britain's infant colony, sails the frigate Tempest. She is one of His Majesty's ships employed in policing the new southern trade routes. Her captain is Richard Bolitho, who hopes to be ordered home to England.Instead he is despatched on a mission to the islands of the Great South Sea, where he must face hazards of fickle winds, pirates and savage islanders. But he is menaced by deeper fears; the men of the Bounty have mutinied in these same waters; and from distant Europe comes news of a revolution in France...
It is 1784, and His Majesty's frigate "Undine" sets sail from Spithead for India. Europe may be at peace, but in colonial waters the promises of statesmen count for little and the bloody struggle for supremacy goes on. Richard Bolitho undertakes a task that would be better handled by a squadron.
Portsmouth, 1782. His Britannic Majesty's frigate Phalarope is ordered to the assistance of the hard-pressed squadrons in the Caribbean. Aboard is her new commander-Richard Bolitho. To all appearances the Philarope is everything a young captain could wish for. But beneath the surface she is a deeply unhappy ship-her wardroom torn by petty greed and ambition, her deckhands suspected of cowardice under fire and driven to near mutiny by senseless ill treatment....
