Three novels in one! Sixteen-year-old Richard Bolitho joins the British Royal Navy as a young midshipman. Follow his adventures as he undergoes a severe initiation into the dangerous world of the great sailing warships. 1. Richard Bolitho: Midshipman 1772: A young Richard Bolitho joins the 74-gun Gorgon. Naive and untested, Bolitho must learn the ways of the navy quickly if he is to survive. 2. Midshipman Bolitho and the Avenger 1773: Bolitho returns home to Cornwall for Christmas, but smuggling, shipwrecking, and witchcraft tear apart his once-peaceful community. 3. Band of Brothers 1774: Bolitho stands on the brink of manhood and takes his examination to begin his true career as a King's Officer. But soon he must test his mettle against vicious smugglers! "All the briny echoes of fictional marine heroes can be heard again in these rip-rousing tales of naval warfare... as the stalwart Bolitho gains the trust of his crew and admiration of his superiors." -- The Saturday Evening Post "Kent's winning hero is Richard Bolitho, who is squarely in the tradition of Captain Hornblower and Midshipman Easy. All of the heroic elements are here . . . Good, solid stuff that still packs a wallop." -- The New York Times Alexander Kent, pen name of Douglas Edward Reeman, joined the British Navy at 16, serving on destroyers and small craft during World War II, and eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant. He has taught navigation to yachtsmen and has served as a script adviser for television and films. His books have been translated into nearly two dozen languages. The Complete Midshipman Bolitho The Bolitho Novels: 1 By Alexander Kent McBooks Press, Inc. Copyright © 2005 Bolitho Maritime Productions, Ltd. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-59013-127-5 CHAPTER 1 A SHIP of the line Although only noon, the clouds which scudded busily above Portsmouth harbour made it seem closer to evening. For several days a stiff easterly wind had turned the crowded anchorage into angry criss-crossing patterns of whitecaps, and an attendant drizzle gave each buffeted ship and the stout walls of the harbour defences a glistening, metallic sheen. On Portsmouth Point itself, solid and uncompromising, stood the Blue Posts Inn. Like inns and hostelries in every busy seaport, it had been added to and altered over the years, but still retained an appearance of a sailor's haunt. In fact, it was used more by young midshipmen than any other seafarers who came and went with the tides, and because of this it held an atmosphere all of its own. Low-beamed, noisy and not particularly clean, it had seen more than one would-be admiral pass through its scarred doors. On this particular day in mid-October 1772, Richard Bolitho sat wedged in a corner of one of the long rooms half listening to the babble of voices around him, the clatter of plates and tankards and the hiss of rain against the small windows. The air was heavy with mixed aromas. Food and ale, tobacco and tar, and each time the street doors opened to a chorus of curses and complaints the keener tang of salt from the waiting ships. Bolitho stretched his legs and sighed. After the long and broken coach journey from his home in Falmouth, and a large portion of rabbit pie which was one of the Blue Posts' favourite dishes for the "young gentlemen," he was feeling drowsy. He glanced curiously at the other midshipmen nearby. Some were very young. Children, no more than twelve years old at the most. He smiled, despite his normal reserve. When he had joined his first ship as midshipman he too had been twelve. Only by thinking back to that time could he appreciate how he had altered. How the Navy had changed him. He had been exactly like one of the boys along the table from him. Frightened, awed by the noise and outward hostility of a man-of-war, yet somehow determined not to show it, and always imagining that everyone else was entirely unimpressed by his surroundings. And that had been four years ago. It was still difficult to accept. Four years in which he had matured and moulded to the ship around him. At first he had believed he would never be able to learn all that was asked and demanded of him. The bewildering complex of rigging and shrouds. The miles of cord-age of every shape and length which made a ship move and obey. Sail drill and gun drill, up aloft on dizzily swaying yards in rain and sleet, or on days when it was so hot he had almost fainted and dropped to the deck far below. He had learned to understand the unwritten laws of the world between decks, the loyalties and rules which made everyday life possible in the overcrowded turbulent existence of a King's ship. He had not only survived, he had come through it better than he had thought possible. But not without some bruises and a few tears to mark his journey. Now, on this dismal October day, he was joining his second ship, the seventy-four-gun Gorgon, which lay somewhere at anchor in the Solent. He saw a small mi