In May 1819, Captain Nathaniel Harcourt takes an ageing Royal Navy frigate out of the wooded waters of Vancouver Island. His orders are straightforward: carry dispatches to Halifax, calling at Valparaíso, Rio de Janeiro and Bermuda. Between departure and arrival lie two oceans, the length of South America, and Cape Horn.
HMS Alderney has survived wars and years of hard service. Her oak timbers work beneath the strain of masts, guns, provisions and men. Her seams admit water. Her canvas needs constant attention. Before the voyage has begun, a rotten cask exposes how much can depend upon a tradesman being heard.
For Harcourt, command means answering for every decision, including those he would rather forget. An injured topman cannot be replaced by a figure in a muster book. A punishment cannot be recalled once inflicted. A warning overlooked below decks may return with terrible force when the weather turns.
As contrary winds exhaust the watches along the Chilean coast, the company settles into its uneasy fellowship. Lieutenants learn when to insist and when to listen. Carpenters, coopers, surgeons and cooks sustain the ship through work seldom celebrated ashore. Among the messes, complaints, jokes and fierce loyalties make the difference between merely obeying an order and helping another man survive it.
Then come the southern seas. Sleet drives across the quarterdeck. Men cling to wet yards above water that can swallow them without leaving a trace. Following seas threaten the stern, and Harcourt must judge how much danger his old frigate can endure before courage becomes waste.
In the ports beyond, naval courtesies, merchants’ accounts and borrowed labour prove as necessary as strength at the wheel. Meanwhile, a letter from his son confronts Harcourt with a responsibility for which his commission offers little guidance.
This is what the Royal Navy was: men living crowded together inside a working wooden hull, carrying authority across immense distances through seamanship, discipline, endurance and countless acts of unrecorded skill. Its power depended upon hands that hauled, stitched, cooked, pumped and tended the sick.
Told through the captain’s eyes and framed by the spare language of his ship’s log, John Shenton’s A Frigate’s Trial follows a company whose greatest test is bringing one another home. From the Pacific coast to Nova Scotia, it is a voyage of hardship, humour and reckoning, in which every mile must be earned and every safe anchorage leaves unfinished business behind.

Available on Amazon

E-Book ASIN: 

Print ASIN: B0HPCHNCFD