James Stockley, eldest son of the infamous Comoddore Martin Stockley, Viscount Purbeck, has qualified for the Navy Academy in Devonport. A natural seaman and scholar he comes top of the class earning the title of year cap[tain for all three years. Given a free choice of which ship to start his naval career on he opts for the Leonidas. Captained by James Campbell and part of his father's squadron he thinks he will see more real action than on any other ship.
How right he is as the squadron goes to the Mediterranean to aid the Ottomans and surreptitiously the Cypriots, then to India where he would change ships for an adventure he would never forget.
This novel fills in all the details in James's career that the Dorset Boy Books did not cover.