Captain Horatio Hornblower is a prisoner in the French fortress of Rosas, having had to surrender his ship, the Sutherland, after a long and bloody battle. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, will be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as an attempt by Napoleon to rally the war-weary empire behind him.