1st. 1994 William Heinemann Ltd., An imprint of Reed Consumer Books Ltd., London ISBN 0 434 62635 X

A light brown cloth bound book with gilt lettering to the spine in Very Good condition. In a Very Good unclipped dust wrapper.There is a suggestion of browning to the page edges.

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The author

Douglas Reeman joined the Navy in 1941. He did convoy duty in the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the North Sea, and later served in motor torpedo boats. As he says, `I am always asked to account for the perennial appeal of the sea story, and its enduring interest for people of so many nationalities and cultures. It would seem that the eternal and sometimes elusive triangle of man, ship and ocean, particularly under the stress of war, produces the best qualities of courage and compassion, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the conflict...The sea has no understanding of righteous or unjust causes. It is the common enemy, respected by all who serve on it, ignored at their peril.'

Blurb

In 1941, after two years of war,
Britain stood alone, sustained only by the courage of ordinary men and women who knew too well the price of submission to a ruthless and
efficient enemy.

For the residents and defence forces of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong however, the war in Europe seemed remote, relegated to headlines in local newspapers and reports from visiting warships. Germany posed no threat to their isolated colonial existence, and Japan, already fighting the Chinese nationalists on the mainland, was not expected to risk hostilities with Britain. Even the evidence of a massive build-up of Japanese forces on the Chinese border caused no alarm, and no preparations for the defence of the colony were made.

Into this unreal atmosphere of carefree optimism comes H.M.S. Serpent, a survivor from the Great War and already a veteran of the cruel Atlantic, and her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Esmond Brooke. At twenty-nine Brooke himself has seen too much of war not to recognise that an attack by Japan is inevitable, and that in the folly and incompetence of Hong Kong's colonial administration lie the seeds of the colony's surrender.

But there are always some who believe they can do the impossible, even in the face of death. This is the story of a ship and her small company who tried.

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