1918: The second volume of the Everard Naval Series culminates in the raid on Zeebrugge, termed by Churchill "the finest feat of arms of the Great War.
Nick Everard is executive officer of the destroyer Mackerel, which has spent the winter months of 1917–18 endlessly patrolling the Strait of Dover to prevent German ships from reaching the Atlantic. Despite his lack of respect for his captain, Everard achieves successes in action. Then he is summoned for top-secret special duty: to command a raid to capture a German trawler's crew and bring them back to Dover. The raid is prefatory to the St. George's Day operation in which, in the space of an hour, the German naval fortifications at Zeebrugge are destroyed. And Everard, at the age of twenty-two, is rewarded with his first destroyer command.