A Ship of the Line
C. S. Forester (1938)
E-book downloaded from the Internet
Hornblower takes command of the Sutherland, a much larger ‘ship of the line’. War has been long declared with the French. Barbara has married Sir Percy Leighton who is his commodore when he joins escort duty for a convoy of East Indiamen to the Mediterranean. In the course of this trip the Sutherland singlehandedly keeps away a couple of pirate ships who see easy prey in the merchant ships. For this he is rewarded by the convoy, but not satisfied with the money from them, he also ‘kidnaps’ a few hundred seamen from the merchant ships, much to their helpless consternation. He rejoins his fleet, only to find that Sir Percy and his ship have not rejoined. Under orders from the senior captain he has a few adventures off the Spanish coast destroying shipping and some chore batteries. After an unsuccessful attempt by the fleet to go into the harbour and bomb it out, (not advised or planned by Hornblower) he is asked to lead a landing party of mixed Spanish and English soldiers to capture the fort. he is promised help from the Spanish land army which does not materialize, and Hornblower has to retreat in short order. Again he is ordered into action, alone against four French ships, and the Sutherland is badly shot before he surrenders and is arrested along with his crew and imprisoned in the fortress of Rosas.
No comments:
Post a Comment