Admiral Horatio Hornblower has given Commander William Brewer captaincy of the captured pirate sloop El Dorado, now under sail as HMS Revenge -- a most fitting name, for Brewer's orders are to hunt down the pirates who have been ravaging the trade routes of the Caribbean waters. Brewer himself lost many of his best men in the engagement that seized the ship, so for him, it's personal. More than one challenge will beset him before he can come face to face with the pirate known as El Diabolito. Brewer's best friend and ship's surgeon. There's the new purser, Mr. Allen, who may need a lesson in honest accounting. Worst of all, Hornblower has asked Brewer to take on as a midshipman a young ne'er-do-well, Noah Simmons, to get him away from an embarrassing situation. At 23, Simmons is old to be a junior midshipman, and as a wealthy man's son he is unaccustomed to taking orders, working, or suffering privations. Of all his crew, however, surely the oddest, and the most mysterious, is his new steward, Alfred Thomas.