Hornblower and the Atropos
C. S. Forester (1953)
E-book downloaded from the Internet
Hornblower and family travel by a canal barge from Gloucester to London along the Thames and the Severn. In London Hornblower takes charge of the Atropos. His first duty is not connected with the ship, but is to conduct the water-borne part of the funeral procession for Lord Nelson who has only recently been killed during his signal victory at Trafalgar. After this, Maria gives birth to a baby girl, and Hornblower has to leave his family of three behind to take the Atropos to the Mediterranean. He has with him in his ship a young german ‘king’ recently deposed by Napoleon, as a midshipman in training. Hornblower goes to Turkish waters, on way picking up a team of three Ceylonese pearl fishermen and their English overseer, to recover treasure from a sunken English ship. This they manage to do almost completely before they relealize they are trapped by the Turkish guns positioned at the mouth of the bay. But some brilliant night seamanship in shallow waters gets the Atropos out safely and on to Gibraltar, where the treasure is deposited. He is ordered to Sicily, where he arrives after an adventure on the way. In Sicily he is asked to hand over his command to the Sicilian King, as Britain is gifting the ship to the latter to enable him to start a Navy. He does so and returns to England only to find both his children very sick of smallpox. (They die of it, as we learn in the next book).
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