Patrick O'Brian · 1979 · sea

The sixth Aubrey-Maturin novel carries Jack and Stephen from the Dutch East Indies into the War of 1812. Taking passage home from Pulo Batang, they survive the burning of their ship in the South Atlantic, only to be rescued by HMS Java and then captured when she is taken by the USS Constitution off Brazil. This route follows that unlucky voyage and its sequel: imprisonment in Boston, a desperate escape, and the famous fifteen-minute battle in which HMS Shannon takes the USS Chesapeake outside the harbour.

1. 1
   Pulo Batang

   His battered Leopard condemned as a transport in the Dutch East Indies, Jack takes passage home for England aboard the packet La Fleche, with Stephen and his crates of specimens from Desolation Island. For a few weeks it is the sweetest of sailing, the war and its troubles half a world away.

2. 2
   Cape of Good Hope

   Homeward round the Cape of Good Hope, La Fleche stands out across the South Atlantic toward Brazil and home. For a while all is well, Jack teaching the midshipmen and Stephen dissecting his specimens below, with no notion of how soon their luck will turn.

3. 3
   Off Brazil

   In the night, far out in the South Atlantic near Brazil, fire breaks out aboard La Fleche and the ship is lost; the survivors drift for weeks before HMS Java rescues them, only for the Java to fall in with the powerful USS Constitution. In a fierce action off the Brazilian coast the British frigate is dismasted and taken, and the friends become prisoners of war.

4. 4
   Boston

   Aubrey and Maturin are held as prisoners of war in a country now fighting Britain - and Maturin, in a city full of French agents, has to conduct intelligence work while nominally a captive.

5. 5
   Massachusetts Bay

   Slipping out on the ebb tide in a stolen boat, the fugitives are taken up by HMS Shannon, blockading the port. Her captain, Jack's own cousin Philip Broke, challenges the USS Chesapeake to come out and fight, and in a furious action of barely fifteen minutes off Boston the Shannon carries her, the Royal Navy's first frigate victory of the war.