Title: Cromarty Biggs: Powder Monkey
Author: Stuart Rivers
Synopsis
When Cromarty Biggs and his friend Craig Tarrant skive off school to sneak on board HMS Victory in Portsmouth, they have no idea that their small adventure is about to turn into an experience they will never forget. Its Cromarty’s thirteenth birthday and, along with a tidy sum of money, he has been given an old Swiss Army knife by his Uncle Jim. An odd attachment on the knife, a skeleton key, opens time portals and they are propelled back in time when they use it to lock a cabin door on the ship, having been chased to a bolthole beneath the poop deck. Interrogated as spies, pressed into the service of the Georgian Royal Navy and given to the ship’s cook and boatswain to act as their servants, the two boys experience first hand the rigours of the life of a powder monkey on board a ship of the line.
In contemporary Britain, a police investigation is underway as a hunt is mounted for the two boys who seemed to have vanished without a trace from the dockyard. Not until Cromarty finds his way back, leaving Craig behind to experience the Battle of Trafalgar, and he tells his uncle the story of their disappearance, does the truth become clear to Jim Biggs.
On Cromarty’s insistence, they must return to the 21st October 1805 and rescue the powder monkey who died saving the life of Lord Nelson by taking the bullet that was meant for the iconic admiral. Only then, will history be restored.
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