To the Indies

Cecil Scott ‘C. S.’ Forester was the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 — 2 April 1966), an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare. His most notable works were the 11-book
Horatio Hornblower Saga
, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic era, and
The African Queen
(filmed in 1951 by John Huston, with Humphrey Bogart and Kathrine Hepburn). His novels
A Ship of the Line
and
Flying Colors
were jointly awarded the 1938 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.

Captain Horatio Hornblower
was filmed with Gregory Peck in 1950.
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
(1999),
Lieutenant Hornblower
(2001) and episodes from
Hornblower and the Hotspur
(2002) were filmed as mini-series.

Forester was born in Cairo, growing up in London, and educated at Alleyn’s School, Dulwich College, and Guy’s Hospital, but did not complete his studies at the latter. He married Kathleen Belcher in 1926, had two sons, John and George, and divorced in 1945. His elder son, John, wrote a biography of his father.

During World War II, Forester moved to the United States where he wrote propaganda to encourage America to join the Allies. He eventually settled in Berkeley, California. In 1947, he married Dorothy Foster.

Forester wrote many other novels, among them
The General
; Peninsular War novels
Rifleman Dodd
and
The Gun
(filmed as
The Pride and the Passion
in 1957); and seafaring stories that did not involve Hornblower, such as
Brown on Resolution
(filmed as
Sailor of the King
in 1953);
The Captain from Connecticut
;
The Ship
;
The Good Shepherd
; and
The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck
, which was used as the basis of the screenplay for the 1960 film
Sink the Bismarck!
Forester is also credited as story writer for several movies not based on his published fiction, including
Commandos Strike at Dawn
(1942); Forester is credited with the story for the movie
Eagle Squadron
(1942).

The 12 volume series of the chronological Hornblower Saga with first published dates:

Vol #1 1949 January 1793 — November 1797
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower

Vol #2 1951 Spring 1800 — March 1803
Lieutenant Hornblower

Vol #3 1962 March 1803 — April 1805
Hornblower and the Hotspur

Vol #4 1967 April 1805 — Summer - Fall 1805
Hornblower During the Crisis

Vol #5 1953 December 1805 — January 1808
Hornblower and the Atropos

Vol #6 1937 June 1808 — Summer 1809
Beat to Quarters
or
The Happy Return

Vol #7 1938 May 1810 — October 1810
Ship of the Line
or
A Ship of the Line

Vol #8 1938 November 1810 — Fall 1811
Flying Colours

Vol #9 1945 April 1812 — December 1812
Commodore Hornblower

Vol #10 1946 October 1813 — June 1815
Lord Hornblower

Vol #11 1958 May 1821 — October 1823
Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies

Vol #12 ‘40-’67 1796-1799-1810-1812-1848
Hornblower Addendum — Five Stories

Maps & Commentary 1964
The Hornblower Companion

10 of the 12 volumes of the Hornblower Sagas are published as ebooks by eNet Press.

Other major works of C. S. Forester with first published dates:

1926
Payment Deferred

1929
Nelson

1929
Brown on Resolution
or
Single Handed

1932
Rifleman Dodd

1933
The Gun

1935
The African Queen

1936
The General

1941
Captain from Connecticut

1943
The Ship

1948
The Sky and the Forest

1950
Randall and the River of Time

1954
The Nightmare

1955
The Good Shepherd

1953
The Barbary Pirates

1956
The Age of Fighting Sail

1959
Last Nine Days of the Bismarck

1964
The Hornblower Companion

1969
The Man in the Yellow Raft
(Collected stories from World War II and 1960’s)

1971
Gold from Crete
(Collected stories from World War II)

Chapter 1

The learned Narciso Rich was washing his shirt. He had a wooden bucket over the side on the end of a rope, and, having filled it — with difficulty because of its tendency to float and the lack of motion of the ship — he had swung it up to the foredeck. Although it was late afternoon, it was still stifling hot, and Rich endeavored to stay as much as possible in the shadow cast by the mast and sail, but that was not easy, because the ship was swinging about slowly and aimlessly in the flat calm. The sun stung his bare skin, brown though the latter already was. Yet Rich could not postpone what he was doing until nightfall, because the work in hand necessitated a good light — he was freeing his shirt of the insect pests which swarmed in it.

There were grim thoughts running through his mind as he bent over his revolting task. Firstly, he knew by experience that his shirt was far easier to clean than the leather breeches which he wore, and on which he would have to start work next. Next, he would not stay clean very long; not in this ship, where every man was alive with lice, and where the very planking swarmed with loathsome creatures which hastened out at nightfall to suck human blood. At this very moment, when he stopped to think about it, he thought he could distinguish their hideous stench, among the other stinks which reached his nostrils.

It was a strange piece of work for him to be doing. Not since his student days had he had to abase himself in this fashion, and for the last five years he had had servants to wait on him in his own house, after he had attained eminence in his profession. Without immodesty he could look on himself as in the first rank of jurisconsults in the triple kingdom of Aragon, and as certainly the second, and possibly the first, authority on the universal maritime code of Catalonia. Merchant princes from Pisa and Florence and Marseille — the very Doge of Venice, for the matter — had sent deputations, almost embassies, to request his judgment upon points in dispute, and had listened attentively to his explanations of the law, and had paid in gold for them. Now he was washing his own shirt under an equinoctial sun.

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