Ship of the Line (Hornblower)

The sixth installment in C.S. Forester's eleven-volume chronicle of Horatio Hornblower's adventures at sea, Ship of the Line places the indomitable captain in his gravest danger he has yet faced on behalf of His Majesty's Navy. The time is May 1810, seventeen years deep into the Napoleonic Wars. Thirty-nine-year-old Hornblower is ashore at Plymouth, newly in command of his first ship of the line - the seventy-four gun HMS Sutherland. She is 250 men short of a full crew, so Hornblower must enlist and train "poachers, bigamists, sheep-stealers" and other land-lubbers. Yet by the time the Sutherland and her squadron reach the blockaded Catalonian coast of Spain, that ragtag, brutish crew is capable of staging five astonishing solo raids against the French army and navy, masterminded by Hornblower, within 48 hours. All the crew's seamanship and all of Hornblower's ingenuity will be demanded when the Sutherland single-handedly takes on four French ships of the line. If they do not emerge victorious, captain and crew must face the grisly prospect of captivity.