Scimitar—a new ship with a green crew—was already at 25 knots and in the ridged sea she could take no more. Her nose was pointing straight at the Jap cruiser's bridge. Snelling's eye caught the flicker of tumbling numbers on the range-repeat dial. Five thousand yards. God, why hadn't the Jap opened fire? Five thousand yards! He couldn't miss. And then the Japanese cruiser opened up, and a storm of high-explosive burst all about them.Then the captain looked at his first mate, and the...

From the smoke-filled decks of a war-torn destroyer to the deadly jungles of the Pacific, Commander Brady plunges readers into the brutal, nerve-shattering reality of naval warfare.Lieutenant-Commander James Brady is no polished aristocrat of the sea. Rising from the lower deck through grit, courage, and sheer determination, Brady commands the destroyer Circe with an iron will and a razor-sharp instinct for survival. But when a devastating enemy air attack obliter...

WHEN THE SKY SCREAMS, COURAGE ANSWERS ..."Cease firing!" roared Brady. "Stand-by barrage."The uproar died. For the first time, sweating and thankful, the gun crews could look about them.What they saw was not reassuring. The bombers were dwindling to the southward but the Stukas were circling, like vultures preparing to fold their wings for the prey-clutching plummet."Come on, come on! " Brady adjured them. "Get these empties clear! If a man fou...

Closed-up, quiet, ready, Wind Rode waited for her enemies, apparently no different from any other time under threatened attack.Yet the real enemy was there, but invisible, having done its work in the minds of her men. Always in past action they had put their complete trust in Captain Peter Bentley and his first-lieutenant, Bob Randall, glad of the close bond which existed between them.Only one thing could come betw...

"All the officers are dead," the coxswain said. "You'll take orders from me."He was an expert steersman and, though his navigation knowledge and ship-handling ability were elementary, he knew enough to get Roper home … whilst she steered a steady course in the open seas.They were trained and responsible men, but all their naval lives they had been used to the instant and unequivocal obeying of orders.No one dared think how much he'd match the trained abilit...

Bentley flirts with danger—and 'Wind Rode' is damaged in action…Bentley relaxes on a well-earned and eventful leave with his friend and first-lieutenant. Bob Randall…And finally the intrepid Australian commander takes his destroyer on a daring 'lone-wolf' mission—which official orders had assigned to a submarine!Another exciting story of Commander Peter Bentley before he becomes the flotilla leader…

A battle-hardened destroyer cuts through the Pacific at the height of World War II — and at its heart stands one unforgettable man: Chief Petty Officer William "Hooky" Walker. Tough, fearless, and fiercely loyal, Hooky has survived combat, betrayal, and the brutal demands of life at sea. With a steel hook in place of his right hand and a reputation forged in fire, he keeps discipline aboard the Wind Rode with sharp eyes and sharper instincts.But danger doesn't only come fr...

When we first meet Jim Brady he's a poor, good-looking, brown-skinned outdoors boy with his head screwed on the right way, and with no apparent scruples about the weaker sex; the warrior's relaxation.At 14 or 15 he's being initiated into the facts of life by the local nympho, at 17 he celebrates his first grown up dance by unselfconsciously attempting, to tumble the first nice, girl he's taken home.He joins the Royal Australian Navy as a raw recruit. And, from the way he pr...

There were only seconds left, yet in that time Captain Bentley's mind encompassed several possibilities.The torpedo might be a dud. There might not have been time for the vanes of the firing pistol to screw right back against the detonator. The torpedo could have been dropped at too acute an angle, it might not regain the correct depth in time. The target ship might slip its doom.The possibilities were abruptly and irrevocably negatived in a giganticWHAM of soun...

Following the hammering she'd taken from a Japanese convoy - as told in The Weak Link - H.M.A.S. Wind Rode was sent to Perth for repairs. But as it turned out, the top brass decided that Wind Rode had run her course and Lieutenant Commander Peter Bentley was given orders to sail her to Sydney, where she would be broken up and decommissioned.It was as if the old girl knew her fate, because on the voyage everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It was crazy, Bentley knew, but it w...

The Pacific War hangs in the balance as Captain Peter Bentley and the destroyer HMS Wind Rode are entrusted with a mission unlike any they have faced before. They are not ordered to engage the enemy, bombard a target, or escort a convoy. Instead, they must disappear.Deep inside Japanese-controlled waters lies a lonely island where Bentley and his crew must conceal their ship from relentless enemy patrols. Their objective is breathtakingly simple, and almost impossi...

Brady looked up and saw men fallen-in atop the destroyer's gangway and then he realised that this officer in the boat was Pelican's captain. So-what? he thought in his sick anger: the ship fits the man. As it should be. In fact, it couldn't be better, so far as he himself was concerned. A scrap-heap of a ship for a man thrown on the scrap-heap. What better berth to land in than a rust-bucket with a ramshackle crew for a man if who'd just lost all his keenness and enthusiasm and ambition?