Invasion of his home put him in a uniform while still a child. His adolescent years were spent surviving battlefield after battlefield. Peacetime forces Bertram to come to terms, and to cope, with who he is as a man.
Bertram Tambling, an expatriate from the former Confederacy, and a veteran of two wars, is now a wandering warrior with no loyalties. After experiencing two failed rebellions, he has sworn off serving any nation ever again. Further disillusioned by the cold industrialization and despotic imperialism transforming the world around him, he turns his back on his code of honor. With a captured warship in his possession, and a misfit crew under his command, he embarks on a journey that has him sailing from one exotic port to the next. After tangling with Chinese pirates and escaping a failed relationship, his journey takes him to France, which in the spring of 1870 is unknowingly on the brink of war. But before Bertram again faces the fire of rifles or cannon, he must first fight a battle that will not be fought on any field, but battled deep within himself.
Bertram Tambling, an expatriate from the former Confederacy, and a veteran of two wars, is now a wandering warrior with no loyalties. After experiencing two failed rebellions, he has sworn off serving any nation ever again. Further disillusioned by the cold industrialization and despotic imperialism transforming the world around him, he turns his back on his code of honor. With a captured warship in his possession, and a misfit crew under his command, he embarks on a journey that has him sailing from one exotic port to the next. After tangling with Chinese pirates and escaping a failed relationship, his journey takes him to France, which in the spring of 1870 is unknowingly on the brink of war. But before Bertram again faces the fire of rifles or cannon, he must first fight a battle that will not be fought on any field, but battled deep within himself.
