1952 Napoleonic naval fiction, seventh written and second by internal
chronology. As a very junior lieutenant, Hornblower is aboard a ship
on her way to the West Indies…
But the main distinguishing feature of this book is that it is
told from the point of view of Bush, later Hornblower's loyal
subordinate, but here meeting him for the first time. Since I began
the series I've found Bush rather appealing, able to do his job
superbly well even if not blessed by the spark of imagination and
daring that animates Hornblower, and I'm glad to see more of him here,
The book is not as neatly divided into incidents as was Mr.
Midshipman Hornblower, but it's still fairly separable: dealing with
a paranoid captain who sees disobedience and plotting in his officers
while letting the men become slack; reducing a fortification on the
coast of Haiti, and disposing of the prisoners; then dealing with the
machinery of the Navy, both in the West Indies and back in England
after the Peace of Amiens is declared.
(I think rebellion by officers rather than crew is more properly
referred to as barratry rather than mutiny, but terminology doesn't
seem to be entirely consistent here.)
I did sometimes feel as before that Forester was rationing his supply
of naval set pieces, though the confusion of an uprising by the
prisoners is very effective, and frankly I find I'm more interested in
the goings-on before and after the major incidents than in the
incidents themselves. It's not just that Hornblower has a Brilliant
Idea; he has to persuade his captain to put that idea into practice,
while quashong any suggestion that he's trying to usurp authority.
There is some scaffolding to be put into place here; Hornblower has to
be in command of a frigate in South America by the time of The Happy
Return in 1808. He has to have acquired his Unsuitable Wife (here,
frankly, more human through Bush's eyes than any impression we've got
of her from other narration) and to have had two children with her. So
some of the end of the book seems a little hasty, but Forester does
his best to make the accelerated career seem plausible even for a man
who isn't yet regarded by the authorities as particularly exceptional.
Good fun still, without the ponderousness of some of the
chronologically later books.