Plot summary
Stephen Maturin and Diana Villiers have found domestic tranquility in their marriage. Though they share a new house in London on Half Moon Street, Stephen's intelligence work demands privacy, so he eventually settles in his rooms at The Grapes, where Diana comes often, and from which he walks to breakfast with her daily. Meanwhile, Jack Aubrey longs to get away from his ongoing lawsuit. Jack is given command of HMS Worcester for blockade duty off the French coast near Toulon. Jagiello brings the Maturins to port in his own carriage, which upsets, making Stephen's arrival rather last-minute.
While she is doing gunnery practice with gunpowder bought from a fireworks firm, Worcester encounters the French ship Jemmapes. Worcester engages immediately, not having changed to ordinary gunpowder; the brightly colored flashes from her guns convince the enemy she is carrying some new weapon, and Jemmapes sails away. Stephen is injured and returns to taking laudanum for the pain. Some of the crew practice an oratorio while the midshipmen practice Hamlet . Passengers are dropped off at Gibraltar and Port Mahon, including a Mr Graham, professor of moral philosophy, though the parson Nathaniel Martin is aboard long enough for Stephen to discover their shared interest in birds, before Martin joins HMS Berwick. Worcester joins the squadron off Toulon. Babbington, master and commander, joins the squadron in the Mediterranean as captain of the Dryad. Babbington has fallen in love with Admiral Harte's daughter Fanny, but her father wants her to marry the wealthy Andrew Wray. Babbington figures that Wray and Harte have conspired to assign him to blockade duty. Before Dryad, the Worcesters see HMS Surprise arrive with mail for the fleet.
Admiral Thornton, commander of the blockade, is wasting away with the ennui of the standoff and the endless responsibilities of managing the complex political situation on the Mediterranean station. He has repeatedly refused reassignment, however, and Jack and Stephen suspect that engaging the French in a decisive fleet action may be his only hope of recovery. Thornton's second-in-command, Harte, has lesser goals. While Thornton is away, Harte passes instructions to Aubrey and Babbington regarding a mission to the neutral port of Medina on the north coast of Africa, with strict orders that they not upset the delicate political circumstances by engaging in any action that might be construed as aggressive, lest the local authorities find reason to side with the French.
Arriving off Medina, Dryad sees French ships already anchored in the port and rejoins Worcester. Jack enters the neutral port in an attempt to draw French fire, but a tense, silent standoff ensues as the French similarly refuse to engage first, and Jack leaves without a shot having been fired. His crew is disappointed and he feels his reputation as a fighting captain is tarnished. Rejoining the fleet, Jack is reprimanded by Thornton and Harte for failing to capture Medina: it is revealed that Thornton had intended for Jack to deliberately allow Dryad to be captured by the French in order to create a pretext upon which they could attack the port. Jack realizes that Harte, who has long disliked him, intentionally left this out of his orders in the hope that Aubrey and Babbington would botch the mission. Thornton mercifully chalks it up to a miscommunication and returns Jack to the blockade.
Worcester then brings Maturin to the coast of France under the cover of night for a rendezvous with other agents, and waits to pick him up. Shots are suddenly fired in the darkness, persuading Stephen to abandon the rendezvous. Waiting for the launch, he discovers the other British agent, Professor Graham, who has accidentally shot himself in the foot. They escape in the launch and Graham is handed over to the Captain of the Fleet to act as a Turkish advisor. Later, the French fleet slips the Toulon blockade. Admiral Thornton is pleased, but the winds change, preventing a successful engagement. The French do not want battle and return to port. A few shots are exchanged, killing the captain and first lieutenant of HMS Surprise, and the Worcester, a poorly built ship, is strained beyond usefulness during the chase. Thornton tells Jack to take her to Malta to refit, then shift part of his crew to the Surprise for a mission to the Seven Islands on the Ionian coast.
As they sail, a poetry contest is set up, with Mowett and Rowan splitting the prize. The Surprise takes the blockade runner Bonhomme Richard, filled with spices, dyes, and heaps of silver. The silver is shared out at once, and Rowan takes the prize to Malta. The Seven Islands are governed by beys of the Ottoman Empire, each of whom rules semi-autonomously and plots against the others to further his own ambitions and curry favor with the Sultan. Their quarrels and intrigues are long-running and personal. Jack has been instructed to visit each of the three beys in turn, Ismail, Mustapha, and Sciahan, and offer the support of the Royal Navy to whichever one seems the most dependable ally for Britain to take Corfu, if not more of the islands, from the French.
Ismail and Mustapha prove duplicitous and temperamental, while Sciahan holds the (fictional) port of Kutali, which, though its fortifications are revealed to be greatly exaggerated, is at least well suited to naval operations. When Jack offers the British guns to Sciahan, Graham is furious and rebukes him for ignoring his counsel, which might have allowed them to negotiate better terms. Surprise is long in port at Kutali, being windbound. The Dryad and the gun-laden transports she was ordered to fetch seem long in coming. Rumour spreads that Ismail has been given permission by the Sultan himself to take charge of Kutali, and the locals beg Aubrey to protect them. Graham travels by land to Ali Pasha of Ioannina, where he learns the rumour is false: Ali Pasha, in his own double dealing, has spread the lie to provoke the short-tempered Mustapha against his enemy Ismail, hoping the Sultan will turn against the renegade Mustapha. The ruse has worked, and Mustapha has captured the gun transports and put to sea aboard his ship Torgud to take Kutali. Surprise is ready to sail on the instant, as the winds have changed.
Jack quickly intercepts Mustapha's ships, Torgud and Kitabi, with Surprise firing broadsides instantly and repeatedly. Torgud is cruelly damaged, with many dead. Young Williamson loses half his arm. Kitabi attempts to manuever between Surprise and Torgud but crashes into Torgud's side. Jack and his crew board Kitabi and take her, and then proceed to Torgud, jumping across like Nelson. Tom Pullings falls in the melee, so Jack stands above him and fights fiercely in the close hand-to-hand combat. Jack finally reaches Mustapha, who was wounded early in the action. His aide Ulusan surrenders. Bonden carries the swords and ensigns. Aubrey asks Mowett what happened to Pullings and is happy to learn he survived. They return to the Surprise before the Torgud sinks.
Reviews
One reviewer finds good writing throughout the novel, whether depicting the tedious work of the naval blockade or the quick thinking needed to deal with Turkish politics, while the other reviewer felt that the novel was not interesting until the Surprise reached the Ionian coast.
Kirkus Reviews found this novel to have splendid adventures and the writing at a stately pace, reviewing it at the reissue in late 1991. [1] Aubrey loses favor inside the Admiralty: "He can't get things right on shore, but he is quick enough to put Worcester to trim, taking slack out of the sails and the crew until Worcester is the ablest ship in the line bottling up Napoleon's navy in Toulon." [1] Maturin is now married, but he joins Aubrey for this mission, doing some intelligence work. The old ship "gives up the ghost after one too many skirmishes" [1] and Aubrey shifts to HMS Surprise to "tinker with the balance of power at the fringes of the Turkish empire. Splendid adventures at a stately pace." [1]
Publishers Weekly said that Aubrey is caught in a net of Turkish politics and rivalries. [2] First, "there is little excitement as HMS Worcester settles in with the other blockading ships, some with crews showing signs of strain from remaining constantly alert but inactive." [2] "Harte dispatches Aubrey on a delicate mission to the politically volatile Ionian coast." There he navigates the complex politics, though "Aubrey knows that should he fail, the admiral would like nothing better than to throw him to the dogs." [2]
