In Distant Waters is a classic tale of swashbuckling adventure on the high seas. The story follows the fortunes, or more
accurately, the misfortunes of His majesty’s Ship, Patrician. The heavy cruiser is a ship of the line tasked with a very precarious mission to the Pacific Ocean, which in the days prior to the Panama canal meant only one thing, the vicious seas of Cape Horn. Unlike many other seafaring stories of this genre, In Distant Waters brings the reader to the furtive shores of San Francisco and the western American seaboard, with not a glimpse of the Spanish Main in sight.
The central character is Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater, a man of vast experience and just dogged enough to pull of the impossible orders given to him by the admiralty. Spain is at war with England, and Russia changes its allegiances more than once. The crew of Patrician never know if the masts they sight on the horizon will turn out to be friend or foe until its too late and the fall of canon shot
opens another broadside engagement. There are plenty of pistols and cutlasses and some very exciting battles scenes in the story.
Richard Woodman’s tale opens with a particularly grim and dark chapter, as a seaman, wrongly accused, is sentenced to death in
order to exemplify the stern no nonsense approach the navy takes to breaches of regulations and discipline. When he is hung from the yardarm before the assembled crew, a rumour of bad luck starts to circulate among the crew, and before long the resentful feelings grow into dangerously mutinous talk.
Ably assisted by some dashing characters that could only exist on the quarter deck of a novel, Drinkwater relies upon the gallantry of Lieutenant Quilhampton and Midshipman Belchambers to keep order when things cut up rough. Every bit as good as the Hornblower books, In Distant Waters is a smashing tale of human limitations and endurance on the high seas.