Bloody Nick Turnhouse has returned from Mauritius to Bombay, where he is welcomed with orders received from London by the overland route. He is to frighten the Spanish by showing himself in a powerful ship of war off Manila and then along the Pacific coast of South America, lands which have not seen an enemy in a generation.

Unfortunately, the expected ration carrier has failed to arrive and is presumed lost and there are no barrels of beef and bags of biscuit to fill his depleted hold.

Nick sets off on a year-long voyage with less than six months of stores to hand. He has to scavenge food that his conservative crew will eat, from lands that do not grow wheat and where the beef cow is a rarity. The best hope, he suspects, must be to capture Spanish ships and garrisons and rob them of their rations.

He makes sure that the spirits room is stacked high with rum.