In the aftermath of a typhoon Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater brings His Britannic Majesty's frigate Patrician into the shelter of the Pearl River on the China coast. The battered ship has suffered losses among her company and is overcrowded by the unwanted addition of Russian prisoners. Seeking the means to refit, Captain Drinkwater finds himself caught up in the bizarre events following the British occupation of Macao and Admiral Drury's half-hearted attack on Canton. As negotiations between the British and Chinese grind to a stalemate, Drinkwater is relieved to be assigned the straightforward duty of a convoy escort to Penang. Part of the convoy's cargo consists of a mysterious quantity of silver specie, and with this comes a passenger.

For Drinkwater this apparently routine task is suddenly complicated by the resurrection of an old, embittered and unabated hatred. Spite, treachery, greed, perversity and cruelty lead to a climactic encounter in the remote tropical rain forest of Borneo.

jacket painting by Val Biro.

The author

Richard Woodman, after service in the Merchant Navy as an indentured midshipman, qualified as a navigator and served as a junior officer in cargo liners and ocean weather ships. Joining the Trinity House Service in 1967 he has commanded lighthouse tenders and a squadron of Guardships in the English Channel. He won the 1978 Barbara Harmer Award given by the Marine Society for Keepers of the Sea, an original work on the maritime history of Trinity House.