Captain Jack Aubrey, accompanied by ship's surgeon and intelligence operative, Stephen Maturin, sails for Cape Horn, assigned to intercept an American frigate that is disrupting the British whaling trade.

Describes the undersea battle between the German U-864 and the British HMS Venturer shortly after the Enigma code was uncovered during World War II, resulting in the only sinking of one submarine by another in underwater combat.

On January 25, 1917, HMS Laurentic struck two German mines off the coast of Ireland and sank. The ship was carrying 44 tons of gold bullion to the still-neutral United States via Canada in order to finance the war effort for Britain and its allies. Britain desperately needed that sunken treasure, but any salvage had to be secret since the British government dared not alert the Germans to the presence of the gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant...