Forced to surrender his ship, the Sutherland, after a long and bloody battle, Captain Horatio Hornblower now bides his time as a prisoner in a French fortress. Within days he and his first lieutenant, Bush, who was crippled in the last fight, are to be taken to Paris to be tried on trumped-up charges of violating the laws of war, and most probably executed as part of Napoleon's attempt to rally the warweary empire behind him. Even if Hornblower escapes this fate and somehow finds his way back to England, he will face court-martial for his surrender of a British ship. As fears for his life and his reputation compete in his mind with worries about his pregnant wife and his possibly widowed lover, the indomitable captain imetierntly awaits the chance to make his next move.
Editorial Reviews
"Stacks up with the most exciting and best written adventure stories in the language." --Time
"Most satisfying...a brave and colourful performance." --Times Literary Supplmement
"No other contemporary writer can equal Forester at this kind of storytelling." --Chicago Tribune
"The best account of an engagement at sea that I have ever read...In a class by itself." --James Norman Hall, coauthor of Mutiny on the Bounty
About the Author
C.S. Forester (1899-1966) wrote many highly acclaimed novels, including the eleven-volume Hornblower saga and The African Queen.
