The King's Journeymen
(2021)(The fifth book in the Duty Glory and Honour series)
A novel by Clarence Cook
The peace is over and England is at war again with the old enemy. For Mr Midshipman Darius, this was the chance to put into practice his years of experience gained as a foremast jack and all the things he’d been taught about seamanship during the uneasy peace. He is eager for the challenge but nothing in his life has ever been easy. For the first time at sea he has to give commands instead of following them and decide what needs to be done instead of waiting to be told, but when a rival discovers he has come up from the lower deck these are the least of his problems. Somehow, he has to find a way to convince the men, his shipmates and a hostile captain that he doesn’t need to be born a gentleman to be an officer or his apprenticeship will be over before it starts. Using everything he has learnt from the Sea Wolf he sets out to prove the point in the only way he knows how; fighting the French at sea.
Abandoned by the British Resident, Xerxes is left as the only Englishman in Poona with his first duty as an apprentice diplomat to welcome Yashwantrao Holkar, the conquering warlord, into the city. Despite the presence of a double- dealing French spy his new career seems to be going well, but then Major General Wellesley is ordered to restore the Peshwa to Poona’s throne and everything changes. Now he has to find a way to persuade Holkar to leave, and when things don’t go quite as he plans he finds himself facing an uncertain future. Using the skills he has learnt as a spy and assassin, forger and thief he has to work himself back into Wellesley’s favour, but there is the Battle of Assaye to face and the impregnable fortress of Gawilghur.
The series, Duty Glory and Honour, follows the lives of Darius and Xerxes as they hone the skills they have learned and move from being boys into manhood, and is Sharpe, Aubrey and Hornblower all rolled into one.
Genre: Historical
Abandoned by the British Resident, Xerxes is left as the only Englishman in Poona with his first duty as an apprentice diplomat to welcome Yashwantrao Holkar, the conquering warlord, into the city. Despite the presence of a double- dealing French spy his new career seems to be going well, but then Major General Wellesley is ordered to restore the Peshwa to Poona’s throne and everything changes. Now he has to find a way to persuade Holkar to leave, and when things don’t go quite as he plans he finds himself facing an uncertain future. Using the skills he has learnt as a spy and assassin, forger and thief he has to work himself back into Wellesley’s favour, but there is the Battle of Assaye to face and the impregnable fortress of Gawilghur.
The series, Duty Glory and Honour, follows the lives of Darius and Xerxes as they hone the skills they have learned and move from being boys into manhood, and is Sharpe, Aubrey and Hornblower all rolled into one.
Genre: Historical
Used availability for Clarence Cook's The King's Journeymen