Which serves a Navy better? Tradition and hierarchy, or innovation and merit? Two teenagers – Jaco Jacinto from Charleston, SC and Darren Smythe from Gosport, England – become midshipmen in their respective navies. Jacinto wants to help his countrymen win their freedom. Smythe has wanted to be a naval officer since he was a boy. From blockaded harbours and the cold northern waters off Nova Scotia and Scotland, to the islands of the Bahamas and Nassau, they serve with great leaders and bad ones through battles, politics and the school of naval hard knocks. Jacinto and Smythe are mortal enemies, but when they meet they become friends, even though they know they will be called again to battle one another. "This is Marc Liebman's first foray into the age of sail, and what a densely packed, rattling yarn he has produced... The twists and turns of the breathless plot see the two main protagonists cross again and again in a story that never lets up its pace." ~ Philip Allan, author of the award-winning Alexander Clay series about the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail.