The battleship 'Balmoral' has gone missing, although it's not lost at all. Dirty Fred and a group of happy scoundrels 'borrow' it to rescue Tom Leven and his important invention. During their adventures they rescue high-ranking military officers from a sunken ship, impersonate them in their official engagements, avert a military crisis and solve a crime. The novel is a comical crime adventure, written in Jeno Rejto's unique style of understated humour. The author has been likened to a Hungarian P.G. Wodehouse.