Bruce J. Hawker, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, is on his frigate Lark to provide escort protection for a weapons transport to the English Navy's base at the Rock of Gibraltar. However, the convoy gets caught in fierce battles with the Spanish war fleet, and Hawker is captured and taken to a dungeon in the fortress of El Ferrol. He manages to escape from captivity, but by then he has fallen out of favor with the Royal Admiralty. This is the kind of seafaring adventure story that Willam Van Cutsen (Vance) always preferred, and so he created the character Bruce J. Hawker in the mid-1970s, who would later launch as a standalone series in the 1980s. His comeback in this genre was no coincidence, as Vance had always been a lover of historical sailing and infused his experiences into the maritime narrative.