Cornucopia is the first part of a trilogy. It's1938: a truly glamorous period in aviation, when the rich and famous travelled the skies in luxury to distant outposts of the Empire in huge, four-engine, flying boats. Empress Airways' flying boat 'Cornucopia' is en-route from Singapore to Burma's capital Rangoon under the experienced captaincy of Michael Kelly. Overloaded, and suffering a failed engine, the huge machine is finally forced to ditch in the violent seas of the Bay of Bengal, driven by an unheralded tropical storm. Its surviving passengers and crew fight for their lives believing the machine will quickly sink, while their injured and trapped captain undergoes crude amputation of a leg to release him from the broken cockpit. Wealthy and beautiful Sarah Gregson, a passenger returning to England with her young daughter, undertakes the desperate and urgent act of surgery, using whatever tools are available on board. Also aboard is a vital consignment of gold bullion being repatriated to England to help meet the costs of her crucial re-armament in the face of Hitler's aggressive posturing in Europe. The aircraft's final and frantic SOS radio calls are freakishly picked up through the static laden ether by Harold Penrose, a ham radio operator stuck in Singapore, en route to England in shame following scandals involving the wives and daughters of leading Hong Kong socialites. Learning of the loss of the Cornucopia, and its last known position, he discovers clues as to the nature of its valuable cargo. But, he is not alone in reaching plausible conclusions. Others too discover details of the flying boat's loss, and its valuable cargo. No less than three aerial expeditions depart Singapore looking for the lost aircraft and its prize. They include a Japanese expedition led by the insensitive Colonel Hyami, anxious to capture and use the gold to buy raw materials for Japan's burgeoning military expansion, the Royal Air Force under Squadron Leader Harvey Wills, fiancee of a young woman pilot: Cecilia Grosvenor-Ffoulkes, Ceci to her friends and family, and owner of a Tigermoth biplane. Ceci lives in Singapore with her army officer father and mother. The third rescue party is Ceci herself, leaving home without word, she is accompanied by her new lover: Harold Penrose, in her small and fragile flying machine. Cornucopia's survivors are forced to cope with the horrifying results of their unplanned ditching; individual skills and foibles are tested, especially the wealthy and beautiful Sarah, mother of four year old Beth. Her courage and renewed skill as a nurse are severely tested as she operates on and cares for, the aircraft's amputee captain - later falling in love with him. Lost and adrift, Cornucopia's navigator: David Rawlinson, finally concludes that they are many hundreds of miles off course, likely somewhere west of the Andaman and Nicobar Island chains, out in the Indian Ocean. Aerial searches undertaken by the three rescuers along Cornucopia's predicted route to Rangoon draw a blank. Eventually, Cornucopia is blown ashore during a further storm; pounded by huge waves, she breaks up on an island beach. Struggling ashore the survivors are surprised to be alive and on land; but the island proves to be uninhabited and there are few clues as to where they are. Most of the bullion is retrieved from the wreck and buried within their rough beach campsite. After further consideration over its likely fate, the broken Cornucopia is finally spotted from the air; the race for its treasure assumes life and death proportions. The final and violent act of its recovery and later investigations move the story to a final and dramatic denouement. The lives of Cornucopia's key characters can be followed through war and peacetime in the trilogy's Part II: Azzaro, and Part III: Dividend.