A colossal hammer blow struck the jolly boat, throwing the rowers into confusion and flattening the sea for a mile in every direction. Corrie's ears sang with a bang almost too loud for human ears to bear. Broken timbers and other remnants shot five hundred feet in the air in a great cloud of smoke and then came raining down. I want to throw up, she thought, but I can't. I have my duty to do. This is what it must have been like when the fire reached the magazine of the Queen Charlotte. You would swear Anthony Barton was born and bred on a frigate in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, so precise and accurate is his description of life on board. This is one of the most intelligent novels I have read in a very long time. - David Stansfield, Sulby Hall That women served in the Royal Navy and helped defeat Napoleon is undisputed. Barton brings them to the fore at last in this thrilling tale.