The Surgeon’s Mate jumps right into the breach where The Fortune of War left off, in Halifax, Canada. I wish these books had maps in them, as geography matters a great deal. I know Halifax is a seaport on the eastern shore of Canada, but I cannot pinpoint it more thoroughly. Nor, when Aubrey, Maturin, and Villiers take ship for England, and are chased through the Grand Banks, do I have more than a foggy (appropriate!) sense of where they are. Not O’Brian’s fault, of course, that my bearings are rough and ready, but with tales that span oceans, the modern-day reader might benefit greatly from such.
Aubrey and Maturin are captured on a lee shore in France and are taken to Paris to the Temple (a prison). They escape, with the help of some Frenchmen looking out for their future if Napoleon should tumble from power, which seems possible at this late point in the war (~1812). Having read all of C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series, I couldn’t help but think of when Hornblower and his coxswain were captured, escaping through a more dramatic, athletic course down a French river to the sea. Neither escape is necessarily plausible, but there is certainly less ‘life of the mind’ in Forester’s novels (which I love dearly).
(Yes, I’m catching up on my posts.)