Автор - Alexander Kent

A Tradition of Victory

After eight years of war between Britain and France there is at last a rumour of peace. But the old enemies are well aware that any settlement will be only a breathing space in which to recover from their terrible losses. To obtain the best terms the French muster a show of strength from Biscay to the Channel ports. At the British Admiralty there are some who see a daring opportunity to even the score at any negotiation table – and who better to undertake it than the young Rear Admiral Bolitho! In June 1801 Bolitho's small squadron is still repairing the scars of battle earned at Copenhagen – and as he receives his orders from London Bolitho is, for the first time in his life, torn between the demands of duty and his real desire to marry. When the squadron sails it is joined by an additional ship, a frigate with many memories from the past. But where Bolitho's flag leads so his captains must follow, if necessary to the brink of disaster – for theirs is a tradition of victory.

Band of Brothers

BEYOND THE REEF

March 1808, and war spreads in Europe as Napoleon holds Portugal and threatens his old ally, Spain. The Royal Navy's blockade of enemy ports continues, and a new anti-slavery bill further stretches the hard-pressed fleet's resources, as more ships are required elsewhere to suppress that profitable trade. Estranged from his wife and child, and plagued by the fear of blindness, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho or ordered once more to the Cape of Good Hope to establish a permanent naval force there following the success of his previous mission. He leaves behind the contempt of society and the bitter memories of a friendship betrayed, and with the mistress he will not forsake takes passage on the ill-fated Golden Plover. With them are others eager to quit the land: Valentine Keen, for whom command at the Cape is both promotion and an escape from his own troubled marriage, the faithful Allday, and young Stephen Jenour, who finds in this dangerous voyage a passage to maturity. When shipwreck and disaster overtake Golden Plover, a hundred-mile reef off the coast of Africa becomes a powerful symbol of crisis and survival, claiming alike the innocent and the damned. Beyond the reef little remains, only raw courage and reckless hope, and the certainty that for those in peril and for those at home life has changed irrevocably.

Man of War

Antigua, 1817 and every harbour and estuary is filled with ghostly ships, the famous and the legendary now redundant in the aftermath of war. In this uneasy peace, Adam Bolitho is fortunate to be offered the seventy-four gun Athena, and as flag captain to Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune once more follows his destiny to the Caribbean. But in these haunted waters where Richard Bolitho and his 'band of brothers' once fought a familiar enemy, the quarry is now a renegade foe who flies no colours and offers no quarter, and whose traffic in human life is sanctioned by flawed treaties and men of influence. And here, when Athena's guns speak, a day of terrible retribution will dawn for the innocent and the damned.

In Gallant Company

The year is 1777 when the revolution in America has erupted into a full-scale war. The navy's main task is to prevent military supplies from reaching Washington's armies and to destroy the fast-growing fleet of French and American privateers. As a junior officer Bolitho is often bewildered by swiftly changing events, but in a ship of the line, under a hard and determined captain, he has little opportunity for uncertainty. At a time of shortages and sudden death even a lieutenant can find himself faced with tasks and decisions more suitably given to officers of greater experience – and as the Trojan goes about her affairs the threat to Bolitho and his companions makes itself felt from New York to the Caribbean.

In the King`s Name

Filled with high-seas intrigue and sharp tensions, this nautical novel takes an intense voyage into the heart of Napoleonic-era Africa. The year is 1819 and Captain Adam Bolitho has been sent on an urgent but risky mission to make a fast passage from Plymouth to Freetown, West Africa, with secret orders for the senior officer stationed there. Due to the slave trade being declared illegal, ships in every harbor are waiting to be scrapped and officers have been cut loose without hope of future commands, thus Adam soon finds himself the object of envy and jealousy. For Adam, newly married and as fiery as ever, Africa will bring reunions and unexpected allies, and a treachery that wears the mask of friendship, and threatens the very heart of all he loves.

COLOURS ALOFT!

The September in question is in 1803 when press gangs ruled the quayside, and Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho finds himself the new master of Argonaute, a French flagship taken in battle. With the short-lived Peace of Amiens in ruins, he must leave behind the safety and security of Falmouth and take his place in the harder war which follows. With the exception of Nelson himself, the recently-knighted Bolitho is the youngest admiral on the Navy list, but his new status sits uneasily upon his shoulders along with his new command. For the most part the officers of his hastily-formed squadron lack experience, whereas their French counterparts are well-trained and confident. And Bolitho is also a man plagued by worry about the coolness behind his recent parting with his beautiful wife Belinda. What lies ahead is the reality of war at close quarters – where Bolitho will be called upon to anticipate the overall intention of the French fleet. And where, not for the first time, his own human reactions and the dictates of his position will be at odds. But it is the realisation that the battle has come to a personal vendetta – between himself and the French admiral who formerly sailed Argonaute – that drives Bolitho and his men to a final rendezvous where no quarter is asked or given.

Command a King`s Ship

In March 1784, at a time when most of the fleet was laid up, His Majesty's frigate Undine weighed anchor at Spithead to begin a voyage to India and far beyond. As her new captain, Richard Bolitho was glad to go, despite the nature of his orders and the immensity of the voyage – for he was leaving an England still suffering from the aftermath of war. But he was to learn that signatures on proud documents did not necessarily make a lasting peace, and found himself involved in a conflict as ruthless as the one which had given him his first command during the war with France. In an uneasy peace the expansion of trade and colonial development in little-known areas of the East Indies soon pushed aside the pretence and brought the guns' fury into the open. There was no set line of battle or declared cause to rally Undine's small company. But the dangers and the endless demands had to be faced by the man who commanded the only King's ship available.

Cross of St George

In the bitter February of 1813, with convoys from Canada and the Caribbean falling victim to American privateers, Sir Richard Bolitho returns to Halifax to pursue a war he knows cannot be won, but which neither Britain nor the United States can afford to lose. After nearly thirty years of almost continuous conflict with the old enemy, France, England and her Admiral desire only peace. But peace will not be found in the icy Canadian waters, where a young, angry nation asserts its identity, and men who share a common heritage die in close and bloody action. Nor is there peace for those who follow the Cross of St George: not for the embittered Adam, mourning his lover and his ship, nor for Rear-Admiral Valentine Keen, who remains strangely indifferent to responsibility. Nor will there be peace from those who use this struggle between nations as an instrument of personal revenge

ENEMY IN SIGHT

As 1794 draws to a close Richard Bolitho, commanding the old seventy-four-gun ship of the line Hyperion, leaves Plymouth to join a squadron blockading the rising power of Revolutionary France. After six months of repairs his ship is ready to fight again, but her company is mostly raw and untrained. Unfortunately, Bolitho finds himself under a commodore who is no match for the French admiral, Lequiller, whose powerful squadron uses guile and ruthless determination to elude him and vanish into the Atlantic. Hyperion, as part of a small British force, gives chase, the desperate voyage taking them from the Bay of Biscay's squall to the heat of the Caribbean – and for each mile sailed and every battle fought Bolitho finds himself being forced into the ever more demanding role of strategist and squadron commander.

For My Country’s Freedom

It is March 1811, and Richard Bolitho is recalled to duty after only two and a half months of precious peace in Cornwall with his beloved mistress Catherine. Promoted Admiral, his choice of flagship and flag captain shock the Admiralty, but Bolitho, poignantly aware of his own vulnerability, surrounds himself only with those men he can trust completely: the faithful Allday, the withdrawn and intelligent Avery, and James Tyacke, who must confront the sternest test of his loyalty with great personal courage. When diplomacy fails the cannon must speak, and Bolitho, patrolling the troubled waters from Antigua north to Halifax, knows that when war with America comes he must fight an enemy not foreign but familiar, for the freedom to leave the sea forever.

FORM LINE OF BATTLE!

In June 1793 Captain Richard Bolitho arrives at Gibraltar to take command of the Hyperion, a seventy-four-gun ship of the line. Although not completely recovered from a serious fever contracted in the Great South Sea, Bolitho is eager to get back to duty against the rising might of Revolutionary France. He sails to join Lord Hood to partake in the Monarchist-inspired occupation of Toulon. But at heart Bolitho is still a frigate captain, and he is soon fretting at being tied to the fleet's apron strings; his ship, too, is old and slow, her hull weed-encrusted after nearly four years' continuous commission. Beneath the Mediterranean sun, and often in sight of the enemy coast, Bolitho and his tired old ship face one conflict after another – and when at last the ill-fated campaign collapses in failure it is the Hyperion, outgunned and outnumbered, which takes her rightful place in the line of battle.