Bøker av Ryan G Plut

Late autumn 1941. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force is terror-bombing Chinese cities, sweeping refugees by the untold thousands before their onslaught. The Imperial Japanese Army has invaded French Indochina, and it is suspected they may soon attack Thailand or Burma, perhaps even Singapore itself.Captain Roy Mallinson, elderly Royal Navy veteran of the Great War, has been pulled from retirement to aid Britain in this new war. His old merchant navy ship, the SS Dominion Empress - its only defence an obsolescent single-barrel Bofors anti-aircraft cannon - is in Singapore loading obsolete US Brewster Buffalo aeroplanes desperately needed in Finland, and carrying Hindustan lead and Malaysian rubber for Britain. But Roy has come to a realization; war is for younger men than he. At the end of the present voyage it will be a quiet retirement with his wife in Stowmarket town.However, the High Commissioner of British Malaya and his friend the Dutch banker have "other plans". Roy is forced into altering his route, taking on a cargo destined for Australia--a disguised cargo so valuable he dare not reveal it, even to his own crew.As the old ship island-hops its way south, they must put in to Java for urgently needed repairs. Here in Batavia, free-spirited Rebecca McKenzie unexpectedly thrusts herself into the captain's life. She's an Australian desperately seeking passage home for herself and ten other Commonwealth nurses stranded here whilst fleeing war-torn China. How can he say no? But German auxiliary merchant raiders are rumoured to be operating in the area. Although Britain isn't at war with Japan yet--Perth is still a further 1,800 nautical miles away and anything may happen!

IN YUGOSLAVIA OF JANUARY 1942 a civil war rages; factions of royalists, communists, and fascists are either fighting or collaborating with each other. To the Allies fighting the wider World War this fractured country is an unknown cipher. Captain Reginald Wallace of the British Merchant Navy is enjoying his rest & relaxation in Egypt after his ship was torpedoed out from under him. For ten years too focused on advancing his career - approaching thirty and unmarried - he's getting older and feeling it. He begins a torrid affair with Millicent Featherstone, the General's clerk.But he's tapped to be a temporary SOE agent for a single short mission: very simply, he's to be dropped into occupied Yugoslavia to retrieve the HLV BELFAIR, a neutral Swedish-crewed ship stranded there, and bring it out to safety in Egypt. Millie eagerly awaits his return.Things never do go as planned, do they? In Yugoslavia he becomes enamoured with Pavlina, a gorgeous assassin on the run from the Nazis. But Slavic commanders have ordered their female partisans to never become pregnant, or the man will be executed. Now what's a fellow to do? Well, first, get the ship out! Easier said than done when the ship is under 24 hour guard.