Автор - Alexander Kent

Heart of Oak

It is February 1818, and Adam Bolitho longs for marriage and a safe personal harbour. But with so much of Britain's fleet redundant, he knows he is fortunate to be offered HMS Onward, a new 38-gun frigate whose first mission is not war but diplomacy, as consort to the French frigate Nautilus. Under the burning sun of North Africa, Bolitho is keenly aware of the envy and ambition among his officers, the troubled, restless spirits of his midshipmen, and the old enemy's proximity. It is only when Nautilus becomes a sacrificial offering on the altar of empire that every man discovers the brotherhood of the sea is more powerful than the bitter memories of an ocean of blood and decades of war.

Honour This Day

In September 1804, England stands alone against France and the fleets of Spain, daily expecting an invasion. Entrusted with an urgent mission for the King, Vice-Admiral Richard Bolitho hoists his flag above the veteran seventy-four-gun ship Hyperion and sets sail with a new squadron for the Caribbean. Plagued by the knowledge that both his troubled marriage and the eye injured in his last battle with Contre-Amiral Jobert are worsening, Bolitho is eager to quit the land less than three months after his return home. But even his beloved old ship Hyperion, hastily restored from an ignominious existence as a hulk, is full of tormenting memories and lost faces. Ordered to plan and effect a daring raid on the Spanish Main, Bolitho spares himself nothing. It is more like a death-wish than a mission. He himself leads the dawn attack against enemy mortars in La Guaira, capturing after a bloody battle the rich prize of His Catholic Majesty's biggest treasure-ship laden with gold and silver. In Antigua once more, he is roused from his darkness of soul by the rediscovery of a passion which defies convention and every risk to his reputation. His future is full of uncertainty as he sails east to Gibraltar, for a rendezvous that all who follow his flag will remember. For the year is 1805, an historic year for the English fleet, and Hyperion is set to fight her last great

Passage to Mutiny

In October 1789, Captain Richard Bolitho, in command of the frigate Tempest, arrives at Sydney, capital of the infant colony of New South Wales. The ship has been in commission for two years and has been employed on isolated patrols, searching out pirates and protecting the great spread of trading concessions and their vulnerable supply routes. Instead of being ordered to England as he hopes, Bolitho is despatched to the outwardly idyllic islands of the Great South Sea where yet another trading concession has been claimed for the Crown. He hears of the Bounty mutiny in the same waters, and is aware of the many temptations to his own men, and to himself. Unknown to him, the uneasy peace across Europe is relentlessly drawing to an end, and when news of the French Revolution eventually reaches Bolitho's lonely command he finds danger and death among the islands, and an involvement which is both personal and tragic.

Relentless Pursuit

It is December 1815 and Adam Bolitho's orders are unequivocal. As captain of His Majesty's frigate Unrivalled of forty-six guns, he is required to 'repair in the first instance to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and reasonably assist the senior officer of the patrolling squadron'. But all efforts of the British anti-slavery patrols to curb a flourishing trade in human life are hampered by unsuitable ships, by the indifference of a government more concerned with old enemies made distrustful allies, and by the continuing belligerence of the Dey of Algiers, which threatens to ignite a full-scale war. For Adam, also, there is no peace. Lost in grief and loneliness, his uncle's death still unavenged, he is uncertain of all but his identity as a man of war. The sea is his element, the ship his only home, and a reckless, perhaps doomed attack on an impregnable stronghold his only hope of settling the bitterest of debts.

Richard Bolitho – Midshipman

In October 1772 Richard Bolitho waits at Portsmouth to join the Gorgon, a seventy-four gun ship of the line. Although only sixteen, Midshipman Bolitho is already a veteran of four years in the King's Navy, and is determined that in this, his second ship, he will not make the mistakes or forget the lessons of his earlier experiences in the hard and demanding ways of the sea. Many of the ship's company are new and untrained, and when the hazards of bad weather, and the relentless hardships which are the daily lot of the common sailor, begin to show themselves, the midshipmen soon discover that authority, no matter how junior, is no easy thing. England is at peace with her old enemies, France and Spain, but the growing menace of piracy across the trade routes, worsened by rich and brutal trade of slavery between Africa and the Americas, make sea travel no less perilous. Gorgon's captain is ordered to take his ship to Africa's west coast and 'show the flag', and by example and swift action to destroy those who challenge his authority. From the captain down to the midshipmen it becomes evident that their new enemy is as dangerous and as skilful as any who fights in the line of battle.

Second to None

'Peace or war, the requirements for this squadron remained unchanged. To protect, to show the flag, and to fight if necessary, to maintain that mastery of the sea which had been won with so much blood.' On the eve of Waterloo, a sense of finality and cautious hope pervade a nation wearied by decades of war. But peace will present its own challenges to Adam Bolitho, captain of His Majesty's Ship Unrivalled, as many of his contemporaries face the prospect of discharge. The life of a frigate captain is always lonely, but for Adam, mourning the death of his uncle Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho, that solitude acquires a deeper poignancy. He is, more than ever, alone, at the dawning of a new age for the Royal Navy, where the only constants are the sea and those enemies, often masked in the guise of friendship, who conspire to destroy him.

Signal-Close Action!

When in 1798 Richard Bolitho hoists his broad pendant as commodore of a small squadron and prepares to re-enter the Mediterranean he is soon made aware of his responsibility. There are rumours of a massive French armada and of the latest type of artillery – and Bolitho's orders are to seek out the enemy and to discover the intentions of his growing force. Without any British bases in the Mediterranean, and unable to show favour to old friends, Bolitho is well aware that there are others within his ships who are no less dangerous than the enemy – and during the weeks and months in which the squadron faces the hazards of the weather and French broadsides alike, Bolitho knows that far more than his own future is at stake. A fleet, even a nation, could depend on his decisions and, when he places his squadron between the Nile and the power of France, he must accept the price of the challenge.

Sloop Of War

The year is 1778, the ship is the 18-gun HMS Sparrow, England's finest sloop of war, and the Captain is Richard Bolitho, sailing his command into the fury of battle. The American Revolution has turned the Atlantic coast into a refuge for privateers and marauding French warships, and it is up to young Bolitho to fight the colonial rebels, to stave off the treachery of a beautiful woman, and to overcome the dangerous incompetence of a senior officer before it is too late.

Stand into Danger

The year is 1774 and Bolitho is now a newly appointed third lieutenant joining the 28-gun frigate Destiny at Plymouth. It is a far step from midshipman's berth to wardroom – and at a time when most of the fleet is laid up Bolitho is considered fortunate. Bolitho's promotion is tinged by personal sadness, but his new captain soon points out that Bolitho's loyalty is to him, the ship and His Britannic Majesty – in that order. Despatched on a secret mission far south to Rio and then to the Caribbean, Destiny and her company face the hazards of conspiracy, treason and piracy – and, as the little ship sails on, Bolitho has to learn amid broadside battles at sea and the clash of swords in hand-to-hand actions how to accept his new responsibilities as a King's officer.

Success to the Brave

Sword of Honour

In March of 1814, Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho returns to England from several months' rigorous patrolling off the North American coast. The bitter and inconclusive war with the United States has not yet ended, but news of Napoleon's defeat and abdication has stunned a navy and a nation bled by years of European conflict. Victory has been the impossible dream and now, for Bolitho, a vision of the future and a personal peace seems attainable. He remains, however, an admiral of England, and an unsympathetic Admiralty dispatches him to Malta. Perhaps this appointment is a compliment, perhaps a malicious ploy to keep him from the woman he loves and the freedom for which he craves? He cannot know, but the voice of duty speaks more insistently even than the voice of the heart, and in this familiar sea where both glory and tragedy have touched his life, Bolitho must confront the future, the renaissance of a hated tyrant, and the fulfilment of destiny.

The Darkening Sea

Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho returns to England after the capture of Martinique, and finds a brief respite from war and politics in the arms of his mistress, Lady Catherine Somervell. But the affairs of nations allow little time for personal happiness, and to his surprise and dismay Bolitho is ordered almost immediately to the Indian Ocean, where the shadow of a new conflict already darkens the horizon as the old enemy, France, forges an uneasy alliance with America and threatens British trade routes. Haunted by the deaths in their country's service of Nelson and Collingwood, and by his own vivid memories of shipwreck and tragedy, Bolitho is well aware of the price of admiralty, and for the first time considers the possibility of life not only beyond the reef but beyond the sea itself.