 After only a few days leave, Captain Sir Alan Lewrie is sent on a secret mission to test a new naval technology being called the "torpedo".In "Hostile Shores", Lewrie is assigned as naval escort for the British expeditions to take the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch, and then to take Buenos Aires from Spain.In a small naval action related to the British holding the River Plate, Lewrie is badly wounded, and then returns to England.