Seaflower / Julian Stockwin

It is three years since Thomas Paine Kydd was spirited away to serve his country aboard the old line-of-battle ship Duke William. Now, together with members of the ill-fated Artemis, Tom is a shipwrecked sailor back in the land of his birth. But they find themselves prisoners, waiting to be summoned as court martial witnesses. In a political act to shield an officer's reputation, they are shipped out to the Caribbean - where sugar is king and yellow jack a fearsome peril. Kydd overcomes his resentment and continues to grow as a prime seaman. A spell ashore at the dockyard in Antigua shows him the complexities of maintaining Britain's fighting ships around the world. There Kydd also has to deal with a number of challenges and in so doing earns the ire of the feared master shipwright. Summarily dismissed from the dockyard, Kydd faces an unknown future.