Lieutenant Hornblower

Lieutenant Hornblower is a novel by C. S. Forester, published in 1952. It is the second book of the Hornblower series in the order of its events, though the seventh to appear, and it is the only one of the novels told from the point of view of William Bush.

Bush comes aboard the Renown as her third lieutenant, and Horatio Hornblower, the fifth and most junior, is one of the men he meets in the wardroom. Captain James Sawyer is convinced that his officers are plotting against him, and he punishes them for it without reason or warning; the youngest officer aboard, a volunteer named Wellard, takes the worst of it, and the lieutenants begin meeting privately to decide what they can do.

Before they settle on anything the captain is found at the bottom of the hold, badly hurt and afterwards no longer able to command, and the question of how he came to fall is one the book keeps open. Buckland, the first lieutenant, takes charge, and it falls to him and to Hornblower to take an anchorage held by Spanish privateers.