September 1804: England stands alone against France and the fleets of Spain, anticipating invasion. Vice-admiral Richard Bolitho has his own troubles to settle at home too. But his time on land is broken by an urgent summons from the King. Once more Bolitho hoists his flag above the veteran 74-gun ship Hyperion and sets sail - this time with a new squadron headed for the Caribbean.

It was an age of empire, an age of contrast, and an age of dramatic change - and one which would determine the destinies of nations as well as of men. Captain Philip Blackwood of the Royal Marines rejoins his ship, HMS Audacious, in August of 1850, anxious to get back into action. "Per Mare - Per Terram" is the marines' motto. In the torturous heat of Africa, where they are sent to stamp out the remaining strongholds of slavery, and later, in the bitter war of the Crimea, Philip Blackwood and his men learn to obey it without question.

In a daring foray, under the very nose of the French Mediterranean fleet, Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage is to sail his tiny cutter close in to the Italian shore and rescue a party of stranded aristocrats from Napoleon's fast-advancing army.

February 1943. As the balance of the war slowly shifts in Britain's favour, Lieutenant-Commander Steven Marshall brings his battle-scarred submarine into home port. Captain and crew are exhausted after 14 months' continuous service, but for most there can be no thought of leave. If the enemy collapse in North Africa is to be exploited, every experienced man will be needed. Marshall must return to the Mediterranean, but this time to a very different kind of war.

The dramatic sequel to Badge of Glory, China 1900. When the Boxer Rebellion erupts into bloody war. The Royal Marines, true to their motto, are the first to land - and the last to leave. Again, a Blackwood is in command.

Winter 1793. Master and Commander Charles Hayden’s orders are to return to the ill-fated frigate, HMS Themis. Placed in temporary command, he is to join the escort for the last convoy of the season - braving the wintry seas. Hayden's uncanny knack for attracting the attention of the French navy sees the Themis thrown back into action only hours out of port. Soon, Hayden's captaincy and military skill are stretched to their utmost....

Western Ocean, 1942... From the bridge of HMS Gladiator, Lieutenant-Commander David Howard’s orders were chillingly clear. There could be no mercy. To the men who fought to protect the vital, threatened Merchant Navy convoys in the Western Approaches, the Battle of the Atlantic was a full-scale war. A relentless, savage war against an ever-present enemy and a violent sea - in an arena known only to its embittered survivors as the killing ground. HMS Gladiator was part of that war.

From the author of The First to Land, a novel set during World War II. They called them the Scrapyard Flotilla. After a quarter of a century of service, the eight destroyers had seen all kinds of action. Now they were to be used in raids to open the way for the invasion of Occupied Europe.

Charles Hayden sets off aboard the ill-fated HMS Themis with orders to destroy a French frigate and to gather intelligence from a royalist spy. On discovering French plans for an imminent invasion of England, Hayden must return to Portsmouth to give warning before it's too late. But the enemy has been lying in wait for him, and so begins a dangerous chase out into the Atlantic and into the clutches of a powerful French squadron…

When Captain Guy Sherbrooke joins HMS Reliant in 1943, he knows he may be her last Captain. Sister battleships have been destroyed, and Sherbrooke cannot alter the bitter truth that there will be no half measures for HMS Reliant.

January, 1944. When the British light cruiser Andromeda arrives at Williamstown naval dockyard to be handed over to the Royal Australian Navy, she is already a legend - having earned her young captain, Richard Blake, the Victoria Cross in her last victory against overwhelming odds in the Mediterranean. Blake has grown to love Andromeda, so has few regrets when he is unexpectedly told to retain his command with a British and Australian ship’s company.

HMS Wagtail is a river gunboat, a ship seemingly at the end of her unusual life, lying in a Hong Kong dockyard awaiting her last summons to the breakers' yard. Commander Justin Rolfe is also seemingly at the end of his useful naval life, an embittered man, brooding and angry from a court-martial verdict. Then the offshore island of Santu is threatened with invasion from the Chinese mainland.

As the streets of Paris are overrun with revolutionary fervour, England prepares for the inevitable war with France. Lieutenant Charles Hayden is a man of undeniable ability. The son of an Englishman, his allegiance to the English Crown is beyond dispute. But, with a French mother, and without any influence in the Admiralty, he is seemingly overlooked for his first commission as Master and Commander. Instead, he is posted to an ageing frigate, the Themis.

Reunited with his crew aboard the frigate HMS Themis, Captain Charles Hayden is ordered by the Admiralty to the West Indies to carry war to the French among their own islands. Before he makes port in Barbados, the Themis intercepts a single boat adrift in the middle of the ocean - its sole occupants, two young Spanish noblemen. But not is all as it seems with Hayden’s unexpected guests.

In 1941, when she was turned into an armed merchant cruiser, the SS Benbecula was already old. Yet even she was needed to protect the vital Atlantic sea lanes. Commander Lindsay, her new captain, had to work desperately to mould the ship’s company - raw recruits and old-timers - into a fighting force. And better than anyone, Lindsay knew this could be his last command, his last chance.