Book Two: The Man

'Jetsam'. At sixteen, that was how George Beale saw himself after the battle of Toulon in February 1744: a tangle of splintered spars, shredded sails and ruined rigging, a hindrance impeding progress, an unwanted drag, to be jettisoned from the flagship Namour. Now he was cast ashore, marooned in this God-forsaken place. He had washed up here, at Falmouth, about as far as he could be from Whitby, his home, his family and Meg, the girl with whom he told himself he had been in love since they...