Their Lordships Request: A Harry Heron Adventure (148 page)

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Their Lordships
Request ...

A Harry Heron Adventure

Patrick G Cox

AuthorHouse UK Ltd

500 Avebury Boulevard

Central Milton Keynes, MK9 2BE

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Copyright 2010 Patrick G. Cox. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/6/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-6432-1 (sc)

Going to sea as a child, Harry becomes a man, as does Ferghal his friend and lifelong companion, through shared experiences and adventures.

Twelve year old Midshipman Henry Nelson-Heron joins a new 74 gun ship of the line for a voyage to New South Wales. His boyhood friend and companion, Ferghal O'Connor follows him and together they experience danger, battle, death and survival.

In parallel the story introduces Harry's descendent as he takes command of a new starship under construction and works her up through to full commission. The future commander must wrestle with bureaucrats and contractors to ensure his ship is completed to specification.

With destinies that will become intertwined, Harry, Ferghal and the boy Danny Gunn continue their voyage while four hundred years in the future (200 years from now) Captain James Heron prepares his ship - and a future none of them can suspect.

Chapter 34 is a full glossary of the nautical terms used in the dialogues and narrative.

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Back cover

The title comes from the salutation of Admiralty orders to the commanders of the
ship's
of the Navy which fought Napoleon and created the British Empire. The new HMS Spartan, a 74 gun ship of the line, is under orders to escort a convoy of prison ships to New South Wales and must complete her crew before she can sail.

It is into this cramped, smelly and sometimes brutal fleet that twelve year old Henry Nelson-Heron plunges as a starry-eyed Midshipman. His first ship, HMS Bellerophon, veteran of the Nile, Copenhagen and St Vincent, is to be reduced to guardship once the Peace of Amiens comes into force and Harry and his boyhood friend Ferghal are transferred to the new 74 gun HMS Spartan for a voyage to New South Wales.

It is a voyage that will bring adventure, horror and most importantly, prepare them for a future beyond even Harry's vivid imagination and wondering. The future world has its failures, problems and corruption which will ultimately lead to Harry, Ferghal O'Connor and Danny Gunn, one of Spartan's Powder Monkeys, finding
themselves
in a strange new future far from their ship and time.

Harry must deal with a vicious bully in the gunroom, face corsair slavers, natural hazards and the demands of the disciplined service he has joined. He and his friends must learn to lead the men under them and in doing so grow to manhood while still in their teens. The voyage takes them through the Great Southern Ocean, around Australia to Java, India and Muscat where they must support their Captain in a diplomatic mission. Here too
the learn
that the Peace has been broken and the ship must return to the war with France.

Some four hundred years ahead, a new war is looming and a new ship is being built. By coincidence the new NECS Vanguard is to be commanded by a descendent of Harry's elder brother. The two timelines converge in the book Out of Time. This book focuses on Harry and his friends as they learn to cope with everything a life at sea can throw at them.