HMS Cossack, the most famous destroyer of World War II, played a decisive role in the freeing of British prisoners in 1940, fought in the second Battle of Narvik in that year and, finally, as an act of revenge on the part of the Germans was sunk in 1941. In an action-packed fictionalised version of the wartime history of Cossack, the doyen of naval fiction, Duncan Harding, retells the history of that great ship which even today is honoured in the 500-year annals of the British Royal Navy. Action is seen through the eyes of 'Wideboy', a typical Cockney spiv of that era, who progresses from being anti-Navy to become one of the heroes who selflessly gives his life to save his fellow crewmen when the Cossack is finally torpedoed at Hitler's specific orders.