Hornblower and the Atropos

Hornblower and the Atropos appeared in 1953, a novel by C. S. Forester that fills in its hero's early years as a captain, when the war against Napoleon was still being fought at sea. Hornblower travels to London by canal boat with his pregnant wife and small son, takes command of the smallest vessel the navy considers worthy of a post-captain, and expects his career to move forward.

Instead the Atropos is seconded to a national occasion. Nelson has been killed at Trafalgar, and Hornblower is the officer responsible for the ceremonial barge and the procession up the Thames, which almost ends in disaster when the barge begins taking on water. Only after the funeral, and an audience with the King, does the ship's real work begin in the Mediterranean.

Forester's plots usually turn on preparation, and this one is no exception: three Sinhalese divers, a quarrelsome salvage master and a sunken ship carrying silver and gold in Turkish waters, where the local authorities have noticed what is going on and would like the money for themselves. The escape from the bay is the set piece, and the reward that follows it is the mixed kind his career specialises in.