Book Two

'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 were ten-years-old. They had not heard from him since before the battle and here he was with his wooden leg and little else, not knowing what was in store for him. What would they think of him if they ever saw him again? He was adrift on the storm-tossed seas of life, at the mercy of the tides of fate and the winds of fortune. He had no fixed course and no steerage way. Best cast out a sea anchor to steady the drift before he was stranded on this unforgiving shore. He would need to make many changes of tack before he reached his final landfall. Things could only get better from this low ebb. . . Or could they?