Under the Black Ensign

PRESS-GANGED. CONDEMNED. HIS ONLY ESCAPE IS PIRACY.

Tom Bristol is a skilled seaman who wants one thing: the freedom to choose his own course. Instead, he is press-ganged into service aboard the British man-of-war Terror, where brutal discipline and a cruel captain leave him trapped in a life he never chose.

When an accident puts him in the path of the Lord High Governor of Nevis, Bristol is condemned to one hundred lashes—a punishment he may not survive.

But before the sentence can be carried out, pirates attack.

The buccaneers seize the Terror, free Bristol and offer him a place among them. For a man forced into service by the Royal Navy, life under a pirate flag suddenly looks a lot like liberty. And Bristol has something the pirates need: the seamanship and navigation skills to take them where they want to go.

Freedom, however, proves just as dangerous as captivity.

Bristol is thrust into a world of mutiny, swordplay, cannon fire, naval battles and shifting loyalties, where knowledge of ships and the sea can mean the difference between life and death. And aboard the Terror is another secret: midshipman Jim is really Lady Jane Campbell, a woman with reasons of her own for hiding her identity.

Then Bristol is accused of murder.

Marooned on a deserted island with a little water, a gun and only a few bullets, he appears to have traded one death sentence for another. But Bristol is resourceful, angry and not about to surrender. If he wants his freedom now, he will have to seize it for himself.

Set amid Caribbean piracy in 1680, Under the Black Ensign combines fast-paced historical fiction with classic action adventure fiction. Buccaneers, sailing ships, mutiny and naval combat make this a pirate adventure and sea adventure in which the realities of another age create both the danger and the possibilities for escape.

“Errol Flynn would feel quite at home in Hubbard’s ripping yarn of Caribbean piracy in the year 1680.” —Publishers Weekly

Drawing on his broad knowledge of the world, its people and professions, L. Ron Hubbard created vivid historical adventures shaped by the places, technology and conflicts of their time.

Part of the L. Ron Hubbard Historical Fiction Collection—12 books featuring 17 classic stories—available in paperback, eBook and full-cast dramatized audiobook. If you enjoy the historical adventures of Jack London and Wilbur Smith, discover another master storyteller of historical fiction.

Enjoy both the book and the audiobook. Also available as a professionally produced, full-cast dramatized audiobook.