The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian

The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian

The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian starts out in BridgeTown in the West Indies. This is after the voyage to the South Pacific in the last episode of the Aubrey/Maturin novels, The Far Side of the World. A day in the life of the Surprise for her hands consisted of cleaning the upper decks as soon as the sun sets, if not before, pumping the water out of the bilge, piping up hammocks and stowing them away wrapping them with seven turns of the rope, going to eat breakfast, cleaning the maindeck, doing the various various morning exercises, shooting the angle of the sun at noon to calculate the longitude, hands piping to dinner, getting your daily ration of grog, the officers being drummed to the gunroom dinner, afternoon jobs, going to get the hands supper, another ration of grog, then off to your quarters and bed or your hammock. Food consisted of a cycle of salt pork, dried peas, salt beef, dried peas, salt pork, etc etc..

Surprise had twenty four thirty two-pounders and eight eighteen-pounders. She could put out a broadside of 456 pounds. But most of her guns were carronades - short,light guns that shot a very heavy ball for a small amount of gunpowder. These carronades would not go far or very accurately so they were not so good at long range but were very good at close range. But the Surprise carried 22 twelve-pounders on her maindeck and two long nines. Jack Aubrey's training of his crew had got the rate of firing three broadsides in three minutes and ten seconds.

After leaving Bridgetown, the Surprise heads home to England and the rest of the book is taken up with domestic and intelligence issues. The next book, The Letter of Marque gets back into the nautical action.

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