The Surgeon’s Mate is the seventh novel in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin series. Every time I review one of these books I say that I’m not going to leave such a long gap before picking up the next one, but then I get distracted and before I know it two or three years have passed by! It was September 2017 when I read the previous book, The Fortune of War, so I was worried at first that I might struggle to get back into the story and was relieved to find that it wasn’t a problem. As soon as I started to read, the events of book six came back to me quite vividly.

If you have not yet met Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, Dr Stephen Maturin, I would strongly recommend that you start at the beginning with Master and Commander. It will make it so much easier to follow the various storylines, which do continue from one book to the next, and to understand the complex relationships between the characters, particularly the one between Stephen and Diana Villiers.

This seventh novel opens with Jack, Stephen and Diana arriving in Halifax aboard the HMS Shannon following the Royal Navy’s victory over the American ship USS Chesapeake (a real event in the War of 1812). From Canada, they make their way home across the Atlantic to await further instructions. It’s not long before details of their next mission emerge: with his half-Catalan/half-Irish background, Stephen is required to travel to Grimsholm, a heavily fortified island in the Baltic, to persuade the Catalan army there to side with Britain against Napoleon. After seeing the pregnant Diana safely settled in Paris, Stephen accepts the job – on the condition that Jack Aubrey will command the ship on the voyage.

Jack is pleased to have a ship to command once again – and grateful to have an excuse to escape from the various entanglements of his life in England. Not only is he being cheated financially by a man he thought he could trust, he has also received a letter containing some unpleasant news from a woman he met in Halifax. The Baltic mission provides a welcome distraction, then, and at first things seem to be going well. Unfortunately, things then begin to go badly, and after a series of mishaps our heroes find themselves taken prisoner yet again!

I didn’t love this book quite as much as the previous two in the series; in fact, I felt that a lot of time was spent tying up some of the loose ends from those two and perhaps laying the foundations for the next one. There was still a lot to like, though; I enjoyed the sections set in Halifax and later in Paris and the details of Stephen’s work, both as a doctor and natural philosopher and as a spy, are always interesting. There are some funny moments too, although maybe not as many as in some of the earlier books; I loved Jack’s account of how he once played Ophelia in a sailors’ production of Hamlet:

‘Why, there was only one midshipman in the flagship pretty enough for a girl, but his voice was broke and he could not keep in tune neither; so for the part where she has to sing, I put on the dress and piped up with my back to the audience. But neither of us was going to be drowned and buried in real earth, Admiral or no Admiral, so that part fell to a youngster who could not defend himself; and that made three of us, do you see.’

I still struggle with the nautical jargon and the lengthy descriptions of sea battles, but seven books into the series I now know that I don’t really need to follow the battles too closely as long as I can get the basic gist of what has happened and what the outcome is. However, with this particular novel I found the nautical parts more confusing than usual, for some reason. Maybe I’m just out of practice and need to move quickly on to book eight!

This is book 11/20 from my 20 Books of Summer list.

The fifth book in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series and probably my favourite so far! For once I found that I was able to follow everything that was happening – the nautical parts are finally becoming easier to understand and, now that I’m five books in, the characters are starting to feel like old friends. If you’re not familiar yet with the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin, you may like to read my review of the first in the series – Master and Commander; otherwise, I have made the rest of this post as spoiler-free as possible, but can’t help referring to certain characters and elements of the previous four books.

Like most, if not all, of the books in the series so far, this one begins on land. Jack Aubrey is in a much better position financially than he was in at the beginning of the previous novel, The Mauritius Command, and is able to provide a comfortable home for his wife Sophie and their expanding family (the twins now have a baby brother called George). It seems that trouble could be on the horizon, however, as less scrupulous men prepare to take advantage of Jack’s open, trusting nature, and much as Sophie loves her husband, she knows he needs to get back to sea again as quickly as possible. An opportunity soon arises when Jack is asked to take command of HMS Leopard on a voyage to Australia to assist the notorious Captain Bligh (of mutiny on the Bounty fame) who is having difficulties in his new position as Governor of New South Wales.

Stephen Maturin is joining Jack on the Leopard as ship’s surgeon, but there is another reason for his presence on the voyage which has not been revealed to Jack. The ship is carrying a cargo of convicts to Australia and among them is a beautiful female prisoner, Mrs Wogan, who is suspected of being an American spy. Stephen has been asked to keep an eye on her throughout the journey to see if he can catch her in the act of espionage. This mission is of particular interest to Stephen because Mrs Wogan is a friend of Diana Villiers, the woman he loves, who has fled to America after also being accused of spying.

I’ve enjoyed all of the previous four books in the series (some more than others) but I struggled at times with the last one, The Mauritius Command, because of the large proportion of the book devoted to naval battles. I didn’t have that problem with Desolation Island. Although there is a sea chase and a brief battle – involving the Dutch ship Waakzaamheid – this forms a relatively small part of the story. Instead, there is more focus on the daily lives of the people aboard the ship and the challenges and dangers they face on a long voyage. The crew consider the Leopard (or “the horrible old Leopard” as they call it) to be an unlucky ship and it does seem to be living up to its reputation with rumours of a ghost aboard, a sickness which breaks out amongst the prisoners and a close encounter with an iceberg!

Another reason I preferred this novel to the previous one is that more time was spent on the personal relationships between the characters. I didn’t feel that we saw much of Jack and Stephen together in The Mauritius Command, but in this book they have more opportunities to talk and to indulge their shared love of music. With some of the misfortunes that befall the Leopard towards the end of the book, Jack needs all the loyal friends he can get! With Jack kept in the dark about the true reasons for Mrs Wogan’s presence on the ship, Stephen is unable to confide in him as much as he would like to and is left to wrestle privately with his feelings regarding Mrs Wogan and her connections with Diana. With most of the novel spent at sea, he doesn’t have as many chances to observe the flora and fauna as usual, but once they reach the shores of Desolation Island, he is able to study albatrosses, seals and penguins.

There’s so much left unresolved at the end of this book that I’m sure it won’t be long before I’m tempted to pick up the next one, The Fortune of War. With Jack’s mission incomplete and the War of 1812 about to begin, I’m looking forward to seeing how the story continues!

Do you love novels set at sea?

Do you know your topsail from your mainsail?

Do you find descriptions of sea battles exciting and easy to understand?

I would answer NO to all three of those questions, so you may be wondering why I am continuing to read Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series. The answer is that while, yes, most of the action takes place at sea and there are certainly a lot of nautical terms and quite a few sea battles, the series has so much more to offer than that. So let me ask three more questions.

Do you love novels with strong, complex, nuanced characters?

Do you like to be swept away to fascinating and exotic locations?

When you read historical fiction, do you like the setting to feel accurate and the language authentic?

Now you see why I’m happy to struggle through the naval terminology and the occasional engagement between enemy ships; HMS Surprise has all of the qualities I’ve just mentioned above and more. There’s adventure (including a dramatic rescue scene, a duel and a storm), a long voyage during which we visit Brazil, India and Madeira, romantic rivalries, witty dialogue and humour – where else would you find a line like “Jack, you have debauched my sloth!” – and descriptions of life aboard a navy frigate that are so interesting and detailed even a landlubber like me can appreciate them.

This is the third book in the series and although it is my favourite so far, I would recommend reading both Master and Commander and Post Captain first. I think it’s important to start at the beginning so that you can watch the friendship develop between Royal Navy captain Jack Aubrey and physician, naturalist and spy Stephen Maturin and so you know the background to their relationships with other characters, particularly the two women in their lives, Sophie Williams and Diana Villiers. I’m definitely finding the books more and more enjoyable now that I’m familiar with the characters and with Patrick O’Brian’s writing style.

I realise I haven’t said very much about the plot of this particular instalment, but I’m not sure that it’s really necessary. It’s probably enough to know that Jack, whose marriage plans have been put on hold as he’s in debt again, has been given the job of escorting a British ambassador to the East Indies, while Stephen, who is accompanying him, has learned that the woman he loves is in India and is determined to see her – even if it means he risks having his heart broken. To go into any further detail would mean giving too much of the story away (I always find it difficult to know how much to say about books that are part of a series) so I’ll leave it there.

The Mauritius Command will be next for me and this time I’ll try not to leave such a long gap between books. I was shocked when I discovered that it was August 2013 when I read Post Captain! Meanwhile I’m reading Temeraire by Naomi Novik, which I’ve seen described as Patrick O’Brian with dragons and which I’m counting as my first book for the Forgotten Histories Reading Challenge.

This is the second book in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series following the adventures of Royal Navy Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin.

Post Captain continues the story begun in Master and Commander. As the novel opens, the French Revolutionary Wars have come to a sudden end with the Peace of Amiens and Aubrey and Maturin have returned to England where Jack has rented a country estate – which happens to be near the home of Mrs Williams, a lady with several daughters of marriageable age. For the first hundred or so pages of the book, we follow Jack and Stephen as they live the lives of country gentleman, attending social engagements and becoming involved in complex romantic relationships with the eldest Williams daughter, Sophia, and her widowed cousin, Diana Villiers.

This period of peace soon comes to an end, though. Jack and Stephen are forced to flee to France when Jack finds himself in financial difficulties and while they are there, war breaks out again. The rest of the book centres around their return to naval action, Jack’s efforts to avoid being arrested for debt, and the conflict between Jack and Stephen caused by their involvement with Sophie and Diana.

After I posted my thoughts on the previous book, Master and Commander, and mentioned my general dislike of nautical books, I was told that this one might be more to my taste as it had more land-based action. And I did enjoy this book a lot more than the previous one. I still struggled at times with the sea battles and naval terminology, but I think I can cope with not being able to follow all the details of what is happening as long as I can understand the final outcome. As for the land-based chapters, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything more Austenesque that wasn’t actually written by Jane Austen! The Austen comparison, by the way, is not just because of the plot but also the writing style and language.

The fact that fewer pages are devoted to descriptions of naval action means there’s lots of time to develop the two main characters and explore various aspects of their personalities and their relationships. I also enjoyed meeting Sophie and Diana and I look forward to getting to know them better. Obviously when Aubrey and Maturin are at sea it’s a very male-dominated environment, so I was pleased to see that O’Brian also writes such convincing female characters.

With the friendship between Jack and Stephen being threatened by their romantic entanglements, there’s a lot of tension in this book but there are plenty of funny moments too, including a scene with a dancing bear on the road to Spain. I also loved Stephen’s attempts at beekeeping while at sea…

“There! A glass hive. Is it not ingenious, charming? I have always wanted to keep bees.”

“But how in God’s name do you expect to keep bees on a man-of-war?” cried Jack. “Where in God’s name do you expect them to find flowers, at sea? How will they eat?”

“You can see their every motion,” said Stephen, close against the glass, entranced. “Oh, as for their feeding, never fret your anxious mind; they will feed with us upon a saucer of sugar, at stated intervals. If the ingenious Monsieur Huber can keep bees, and he blind, the poor man, surely we can manage in a great spacious xebec?”

Having enjoyed this book so much, I now feel much more enthusiastic about reading the rest of the series than I did after the first book. I’m looking forward to H.M.S Surprise!

I do not usually like books set at sea. However hard I try, I just can’t seem to keep track of the nautical terms and as soon as I see words like ‘mainsail’, ‘fo’c’sle’ or ‘bosun’ my brain just seems to switch off. As a fan of historical fiction, I have been unable to avoid this entirely – after all, until the 20th century the only way to cross the sea was by ship and many historical fiction novels do involve a sea voyage or two – but the thought of reading a book where seafaring forms a major part of the plot is always quite daunting for me. For this reason I’ve resisted reading the Aubrey/Maturin series for a long time, despite it being described as one of the best historical series ever written, but a couple of weeks ago I decided it was time I gave Master and Commander a try.

The story begins in Port Mahon, Minorca, with Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin meeting for the first time at a concert in the Governor’s House. After an initial disagreement that almost results in a duel, Aubrey and Maturin discover a shared passion for music and a friendship begins to develop. Jack Aubrey has just been given his first command of the sloop, HMS Sophie, and after discovering that Stephen is a physician, he invites his new friend to join him as ship’s surgeon. With Britain at war with France (it’s the year 1800), life at sea is both dangerous and exciting and as the Sophie cruises the Mediterranean she becomes engaged in a series of sea battles and encounters with enemy ships.

I loved Patrick O’Brian’s writing style from the beginning, but as soon as the Sophie set sail all my fears about naval novels were realised. I did try – there’s a useful diagram at the front of the book and of course there’s always the option of looking up unfamiliar words and finding pictures of ships online (if, like me, you don’t know the difference between a brig and a frigate and have always thought a settee was something you sat on) – but in the end I decided not to worry about it and luckily, there were still plenty of things for a landlubber like me to enjoy, not least the wonderful characters. Too often characters in historical fiction are depicted as having modern sensibilities and come across as twentieth century people dropped into a historical background – that was thankfully not the case with this book; they felt realistic and believable. O’Brian’s prose and dialogue is completely appropriate for the time period and the same is true of the behaviour and thought processes of the characters.

I liked both of the main characters and the contrast between their very different personalities and am looking forward to getting to know them better over the course of the series. At the moment Stephen Maturin is my favourite; I also appreciated the fact that he doesn’t have much more knowledge of seafaring matters than I do and has to have even the most basic naval facts explained to him by other members of the crew. It was good to know that someone else shared my bewilderment of the nautical world and I loved the way even at moments of high drama at sea, he was more excited about spotting a rare bird or fish.

Master and Commander doesn’t have a lot of plot, being of a more episodic nature, but I finished the book with a better understanding of what conditions were like onboard a ship in the Napoleonic era and what daily life involved for a sailor in the Royal Navy. It seems that not being able to follow all of the terminology or the more intricate points of the various naval manoeuvres was not the problem I was afraid it would be. I didn’t instantly fall in love with this series, but I still enjoyed my first introduction to Aubrey and Maturin and I’m sure I’ll be reading the next one very soon!