Malta 1941. To most people HMS Saracen is just an ugly, obsolete ship with an equally ugly history. But to Captain Richard Chesnaye the Saracen brings back memories of Gallipoli, and as the war enters a new phase, he senses a new role for her.

In December 1917 Germany opens the final, bitter round of the war with a new and deadly weapon in the struggle for the seas. The Vulcan appears to be a harmless merchant vessel. However, her peaceful lines conceal a merciless firepower.

In November 1941, Lt Ralph Trewin, DSC, arrives in Singapore as second-in-command of HMS Porcupine. To the shell-shocked Trewin, the gunboat and her 5 elderly consorts symbolise the ignorance and blind optimism he finds in Singapore.

HMS Temeraire: latest and most advanced of Britain's nuclear submarines. When Temraire's trials are cut short and she is ordered to the Far East to reinforce the fleet against a threat from Red China, her captain, David Jermain, knows that this is no routine exercise in flag-waving.

With the Allies poised for the invasion of Italy, the Germans hold a vital card: a floating dock, the only one in the Adriatic large enough to take a major warship. Moored at a small port near Rimini, it is exposed, vulnerable. It must be destroyed before the Germans can tow it to a safer harbour.

Memories are short of HMS Royston - they have to be. As mother ship to a battered, war-torn bunch of MTBs she must carry out her vital role whatever the conditions, whatever the risks. Sub-Lieutenant Royce's predecessor has only been dead forty-eight hours, and already the crew has forgotten him. Royce must learn the job the hard way...

In 1941, when she was turned into an armed merchant cruiser, the S S 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.