The Floating Madhouse

"Impeccable in detail and gripping in impact". - IRISH INDEPENDENT In 1904, Tsar Nicholas II sends his Baltic fleet, re-named the Second Pacific Squadron, to the Far East. Consisting mostly of old crocks with untrained crews and inefficient officers, the squadron's primary aim is to relieve Port Arthur, which is under siege by the Japanese... Michael Henderson, Lieutenant RN, has been caught in flagrante delicto with eighteen-year-old Princess Natasha Volodnyakov. Tasha's great-uncle is able to get rid of the young Englishman by offering him a privilege he can't refuse - to sail as an observer with the Second Pacific Squadron. Nobody expects any of them to get back - that's the crux of it.