Alexander Kent Novels (II)
COMMAND A KING’S SHIP
March 1784 ... It is a time of peace and most of His Majesty's fleet is laid up. However the frigate Undine is despatched to India and beyond. Even though the war with France is temporarily over, the far side of the world promises plenty of action for Undine's captain, Richard Bolitho. The nations of Europe are greedy for trade and colonies and tension in remote areas of the East Indies soon comes to boiling point. Bolitho has to face the new threats alone, and rally Undine's small company to a new type of warfare where there is no specified line of battle or higher patriotic cause.
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PASSAGE TO MUTINY
October 1789 ... The frigate Tempest arrives in Sydney, capital of Britain's infant colony in New South Wales. Her captain, Richard Bolitho, yearns to be posted home to England: instead he is ordered to police the southern trade routes. Soon he is on a mission deep into the immensity of the Great South Sea, where he must face hazards of fickle winds, pirates and savage islanders. But at the back of his mind there is an even greater danger: the men of the Bounty mutinied in these same waters; and from distant Europe comes news of the Revolution in France.
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WITH ALL DESPATCH
Spring 1792 ... England is enjoying a troubled peace, with her old enemy France still in the grip of the Terror. In harbours and estuaries around the country, the fleet has been left to rot, and thousands of officers and seamen have been thrown unwanted on the beach. Even a frigate captain as famous as Richard Bolitho is forced to swallow his pride and accept a minor appointment to the Nore. With his small flotilla of three topsail cutters he sets out to search for the most brutal gang of smugglers England has known, the Brotherhood – a gang with men of influence behind them and a secret, sinister trade in human misery.
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FORM LINE OF BATTLE!
June 1793 ... Gibraltar – the gathering might of revolutionary France prepares to engulf Europe in another bloody war. As in the past, Britain will stand or fall by the fighting power of her fleet. For Richard Bolitho, the renewal of hostilities means a fresh command and the chance of action after long months of inactivity. However, his mission to support Lord Hood in the monarchist-inspired occupation of Toulon has gone awry. Bolitho and the crew of the Hyperion are trapped by the French near a dry Mediterranean island. The great ship of the line's battered hull begins to groan as her sails snap in the hot wind.
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ENEMY IN SIGHT!
1794 ... As the year draws to a close Richard Bolitho, commanding the old seventy-four-gun ship of the line, Hyperion, is despatched from Plymouth to join a squadron blockading the coast of Revolutionary France. Unfortunately there is little time for Bolitho's raw crew to settle their new duty before the French Admiral slips past into the Atlantic with a powerful squadron. Hyperion must give chase from the squally Bay of Biscay to the sultry heat of the Caribbean. Soon Bolitho finds himself not only in command of the Hyperion but strategist for the entire British force. Success or failure in the coming engagement falls on his shoulders.
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