Hornblower fired. There was a small cloud of smoke, but no bang. This is death, he thought. My pistol was the unloaded one.' But Horatio Hornblower does not die. He survives the duel with Simpson, learns to overcome his seasickness, and goes on to risk his life many times over. It is 1793, Britain is at war with France, and life on a sailing ship of war is hard and dangerous. But the hardest battles are fought by Hornblower within himself.
Jack Easy is his name - midshipman and sailor of fortune. He takes everything that the toughest British seaman can dish out - and he always comes up for more. This in the Royal Navy as it wars against the Spanish pirates in the early years of the 19th century. So ride the waves and reef the sails, and man the guns with Mr. Midshipman Easy.
1781 Held by the British, the Chesapeake Bay port of Yorktown is under siege. Pounded by the American forces on land and the deadly warships of their French allies at sea, the once-proud city is aflame and near ruin. But on the horizon, the Royal Navy fleet, with heavily armed frigates, is poised to break through the French blockade. Aboard HMS Desperate, Midshipman Alan Lewrie sets his gunners to their lethal work firing broadsides of 24-pound shot at the enemy vessels.
The year is 1772, and Richard Bolitho is a sixteen-year-old midshipman about to undergo a severe initiation into the game of seamanship. Two novels in one, Midshipman Bolitho follows young Bolitho's adventures as he intercepts and destroys a band of vicious pirates, and then is swept away on a dangerous mission through the treacherous stamping ground of smugglers, wreckers, and murderers.
