Summary for HMS Surprise
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| SPOILER WARNING: Plot or ending details for "HMS Surprise" follow. |
A chapter by chapter look at HMS Surprise
Contents |
CHAPTER 1
Admiralty Board refuses prize money, Stephen exposed by error of new First Lord - Stephen dines with Williamses - Diana gone to India with Canning - negotiations in train for marriage of Jack and Sophia - Stephen meets Blaine at Entomological Society - despite blown cover, Stephen decides to revisit Catalonia.
CHAPTER 2
Lively blockading Toulon - Jack helps teach mids, begins to study Conic sections - ordered to Mahon, now in Spanish hands - takes battery on Languedoc coast - looks in Port-Vendres for frigate Diomede, takes store-ship Dromadaire instead - Chinese and Malay ex-pirate hands slaughter French gunboat crew - French signal book taken - Jack puts in to Minorca to fetch Stephen - Joan Maragall tells Stephen taken and tortured.
CHAPTER 3
Maragall explains lie of land - Jack takes gunboat in - kills French, releases all prisoners - takes Stephen back to Lively.
CHAPTER 4
Stephen gracelessly convalescing in Portsmouth - Jack taken for debt - Sir Joseph Blaine calls on Stephen at the Grapes, announces retirement - Stephen gives him papers from Mahon - Stephen recovers in Bath - Sir Joseph suggests voyage of Surprise with Stanhope to Kampong - Jack released to the Grapes - midnight meeting of Sophia and Jack on Portsmouth road.
CHAPTER 5
Surprise becalmed in Atlantic - Stephen swims length of ship - Stanhope's secretary presuming - muster - water short - scurvy in pressed hands - spare sails mildewed - church rigged - St Paul's Rocks sighted - Stephen considers gunroom - visits Rocks with Lt Nicolls - Stephen learning Urdu - boobies' Paradise - Nicolls discouraged - squall - Nicolls lost, ship driven away.
CHAPTER 6
Stephen rescued by Babbington - health improved by sun - Nicolls lost - Stephen's rats eaten by mids - Jack rates Babbington acting lieutenant - Stephen doses mids - insists on landing in Brazil for antiscorbutics - history of Hermione - Stephen returns with sloth - phosphorescence - sloth takes to drink - they put in to Rio de Janeiro - Jack cleared of debts - news of Linois in Indian Ocean - news of Sophia and her new follower Mr Hincksey - Stephen explores Brazilian forests - heavy weather off the Cape - Bonden learns to write - albatrosses - Surprise pooped, recovers - calm weather in Indian Ocean - dinner with Mr Stanhope - Stephen catches sea snake - Bombay.
CHAPTER 7
Bombay - Surprise refitted - Stephen turned loose, loves city, finds new friends - mathematical Parsee merchant - Dil - Villiers and Canning, scandal of mem-sahibs - Mrs Canning coming to Calcutta - Cecilia and Frances married - Sophia dispirited - Jack won't press - Bombay sea-festival - Diana meets Stephen, kind to Dil - he buys bangles for Dil, visits Diana with Lady Forbes - dreary picnic with Stanhope - Stephen proposes marriage - Canning interrupts - Bonden waiting for Stephen, board at once - Stephen disobeys, finds Dil dead, pays for pyre.
CHAPTER 8
Lieutenant Stourton joins Surprise - Jack writes to Sophia, his ship in good shape, worries about Stephen, plans for cottage gardening - Jack shows Stephen his initials on foretop - encounter with Seringapatam, Linois far away - Stephen studies Malay - Stanhope sick - landfall at Pulo Batak, too late, Stanhope dies.
CHAPTER 9
Surprise finds China fleet - dinner in Lushington - Linois squadron sighted - decoyed away from fleet, but Linois finds them again - council of war with Indiaman captains, three Indiamen disguised as men of war - fleet action, Surprise takes on Marengo, 74, badly damaged, rescued by Royal George - Linois draws off.
CHAPTER 10
Surprise feted in Calcutta - Canning offers Jack freight and post for England - Jack summons Sophia to Madeira - Stephen visits Diana for answer - interrupted by Canning, quarrel, blow - duel on Maidan - Stephen wounded, kills Canning by mistake.
CHAPTER 11
Jack visits Diana in cold anger - Stephen's message to return to England - Jack disconcerted - Stephen extracts bullet from himself - Jack defends Diana against local gossips - she visits Stephen - Surprise carries Canning's jewels, follows Lushington, with Diana aboard, towards home - Stephen delirious, Jack sits with him, learns his secrets - Stephen recovering, lands on Indian Ocean island, discovers Testudo aubreii - Rev White describes Rev Hincksey to Stephen - Madeira, no message, no Sophia, Diana has gone to America with Johnson - Surprise meets Dundas in Ethalion at sea, Sophia on board.
