H.m.s. Marathon [first edition]

1942: The Mediterranean Operation 'Stonehenge' gets underway - a convoy laden with desperately needed fuel, food and ammunition for the beseiged island of Malta sets sail. Captain Robert Thurston commands the British cruiser HMS 'Marathon', one of the escort vessels on this Malta run. Thurston is a career officer with a record of conspicuous gallantry under fire, from Jutland to the North Atlantic convoys. But he is a man under stress - in the last three years he has seen one ship go to the bottom, leaving pitifully few survivors; he has seen his closest friends and shipmates killed and maimed; he has carried the impossibly heavy burden of responsibility for his men's welfare in the bloody destruction of war at sea