The Honour of the Flag

A retired tailor has settled into a modest villa on the banks of the Thames at Erith, where he watches the river’s lively traffic of sailing craft—a world that has largely vanished in modern times. From his open window he can count dozens of different rigs in a single afternoon, and each Easter Monday he fires a small cannon from his garden, a noisy celebration that hints at a complicated past with his late wife.

Living nearby is Joseph Westlake, an old seaman whose career once saw him under Collingwood at Navarino and in daring cutting‑out raids in the West Indies. Bearing a scarred brow and a lifetime of sea stories, Westlake becomes drawn into the tailor’s peculiar ritual. Their unlikely friendship soon places both men at the heart of a stirring incident that tests loyalty, memory, and the true meaning of honour beneath the flag that flies over the river’s historic waters.