Wareham Andrew download all books 2 books

Peter Naseby is enjoying a leisurely naval career when his ship runs down the Admiral in Command at Portsmouth. On his watch. It is early 1915 and he had been looking forward to joining the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow. Now he must accept a posting to obscurity or volunteer for hazardous duty. To save his career, he joins the Blimps of the Royal Naval Air Service – he becomes a Balloonatic. Sat in a flimsy cockpit under 70,000 cubic feet of inflammable hydrogen with a crew of one, a Lewis Gun, and a single bomb, he potters out every day to chase submarines in the English Channel. Occasionally, he catches one. Onshore, he juggles the demands of Josephine, a young English rose, and Charlie, much more of a hothouse flower, while he decides just what his future shall be.

October 1913 and the St Vincent is in Portsmouth harbour, where four midshipmen have come to the end of their first two-year cruise. Called to Captain Ironside’s cabin, they learn their fate. Three are made sublieutenant, the fourth is pushed out of the Navy, a failure. There was no tolerance in the Royal Navy for weaklings and incompetents who failed to master the basics. They were beaten for every infraction of the rules of seamanship, encouraging them to conform or to get out. Adams, born to the elite, is made sublieutenant and posted to Iron Duke, flagship of the Grand Fleet, and the latest and largest of superdreadnoughts. McDuff goes to Good Hope cruiser bound for the South Atlantic. An old ship, and he had hoped for better, but there were chances to specialise on an armoured cruiser. Sturton, able and slightly maverick, hoped to be sent to another battleship where he could become a gunnery specialist, but instead goes to Sheldrake, a destroyer joining the Mediterranean Fleet. Destroyers were wet, cold, and uncomfortable, but it could be the making of his career. Baker, the failure, had never fit in. He came from the wrong background and was ostracised aboard ship, left on his own to survive the best he could. Rejected by the Navy, he is forced to join the Territorial Army or be disowned by his rich, vulgar father. Nineteen years of age and dumped on the scrapheap. War comes in August and the four young men meet its challenges in surprising ways.