From Gibraltar to Crete; the tangled lives of naval officers and their men, Pulver and Stebbings, of marines like O'Flynn, Maori warriors like Lieutenant Ngarimu, the healer 'Ronnie' Prasad and many more, following the orders of their political masters, intent on stabilising the newly-liberated Spain and smashing the German war machine on land, on seas patrolled by HMS Hood and her sisters, and in skies overflown by the RAF and the Luftwaffe. This is war. But not as the history books tell it.