The Surgeon's Mate

The Surgeon's Mate
1st edition
Author(s)	Patrick O'Brian
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Aubrey–Maturin series
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	Harper Collins (UK)
Publication date	1980
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio Book (Cassette, CD)
Pages	pages (first edition, hardback) & pages 382 (paperback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-393-03707-X , (first edition, hardback) & ISBN 0-393-30820-0 (paperback edition UK)
OCLC Number	31728377
Preceded by	The Fortune of War
Followed by	The Ionian Mission

The Surgeon's Mate is a historical novel written by Patrick O'Brian and set during the Napoleonic Wars. It is the seventh book in the Aubrey–Maturin series.

Plot summary

The Surgeon's Mate starts in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, having escaped from the Americans in Boston aboard HMS Shannon, start their return journey to England aboard a packet ship. Two American privateer schooners — commissioned by Harry Johnson, an American spymaster — doggedly pursue the packet ship across the Grand Banks until one of them fortuitously hits an iceberg. On their return to England, Stephen receives an invitation to speak at the Institut in Paris on the extinct avifauna of Rodriguez Island and he and Diana visit the city. Stephen arranges for Diana, who is pregnant with Johnson's child, to stay with a friend Adhemar de La Mothe for her lying-in.

The British Admiralty is keen to capture the fortress at fictitious Grimsholm Island (distinct from the Grimsholmen nature reserve) owing to its highly strategic location in the Baltic. Maturin, accompanied by Jack Aubrey and Jagiello, a remarkably talented and handsome young Lithuanian, embarks on a mission to persuade the Catalan garrison of the fortress to defect. Aboard HMS Ariel, Aubrey manages to capture the Minnie, a swift Danish privateer cum merchantman, after a day-long chase. Once Stephen Maturin and British hands are aboard, they pretend to give chase to her in order to deceive the Spanish garrison. Maturin is eventually landed and, in the absence of any French officers, warmly welcomed by his Catalan godfather, Ramon d'Ullastret. The next morning, the Catalan troops and their colonel are loaded aboard the transport ships and the successful expedition receives a warm welcome back at base from Admiral Sir James Saumarez.

Caught up in a storm in the English Channel, the Ariel spots HMS Jason pursuing a French two-decker, the Meduse. Aubrey decides to help the chase and blasts the Meduse with his carronades without suffering much damage, slowing her pace enough for the Jason to gain. After losing sight of them, the Ariel is caught up in two nights of dark, stormy weather and finds herself fifty miles off course with the wind dead on shore. Aubrey attempts to club-haul her but the Ariel ends up beached on the shore. After a brief period of imprisonment in Brittany, Jack, Stephen and Jagiello are taken to Paris, accompanied by a Monsieur Duhamel. Imprisoned in the Temple prison, Aubrey attempts to break out down the immense stone privy as Stephen is interrogated by French officers, who represent a different intelligence agency than Duhamel's. In the meantime, Duhamel has approached Stephen with an offer to take peace offerings to the King and British government (presumably a plan hatched up by Talleyrand and some senior officials). Duhamel also gives Stephen some English newspapers to read and Jack's spirits are buoyed to learn from the Naval Chronicle that HMS Ajax defeated the Meduse in the action which beached his ship, the Ariel. Stephen's second interrogation is interrupted by the American, Johnson, who is able to identify Maturin as an intelligence agent and the killer of French spies, Dubreuil and Pontet-Canet. This action places Maturin in great danger.

It also turns out that Diana Villiers has given her great diamond, the Blue Peter, to a Minister's wife to help secure their release. Just as Jack breaks through the privy, four Frenchmen enter their prison cell — D'Anglars, Duhamel, a foreign ministry official and a cloaked officer. After agreeing terms, the prisoners are taken down to two carriages and spirited out of Paris (accompanied by Diana who has lost her baby) to a waiting cartel at Calais, the Oedipus commanded by William Babbington. Safely away, Stephen proposes to Diana Villiers once again and they are finally married on board by Babbington, with Jack giving her away.

The book title is a triple entendre in its use of the term "mate", referring to a ship's surgeon's assistant, a chess reference to Maturin's successful espionage efforts (i.e., checkmate), and Maturin getting married at the end of the story.

Characters

• Jack Aubrey - Captain.
• Stephen Maturin - ship's surgeon, friend to Jack and intelligence officer.
• Sophie Aubrey - Jack's wife.
• Mrs. Williams - Sophie's mother.
• Diana Villiers - Stephen's love interest, who becomes his wife.
• Miss Amanda Smith - Jack's paramour in Nova Scotia.
• Gedymin Jagiello - a young Lithuanian cavalry officer, seconded to the Admiralty from the Swedish service.
• Sir Joseph Blaine - senior figure at the Admiralty and Maturin's spymaster.
• William Babbington - Jack's former lieutenant and captain of the Oedipus.
• Ramon d'Ullastret i Casademon - a Catalan colonel and Stephen Maturin's godfather.
• Admiral Sir James Saumarez - Admiral of the Baltic Fleet at Carlscrona.
• Monsieur Duhamel - a French secret agent.

Ships

• British
  • HMS Ariel
  • HMS Shannon
  • HMS Humbug
  • HMS Oedipus
  • HMS Ajax
  • HMS Jason
• Danish
  • Minnie
• French:
  • Méduse

Historical references

In 1807, the Spanish government, at that time allied with France, had sent 15,000 troops to Denmark to act as a garrison against a possible British landing there. These troops, among the best in Spain, garrisoned offshore islands in small detachments and remained in the dark about political developments in Spain following Napoleon's invasion and occupation of Spain in 1807 (see Peninsular War).

The Duke of Wellington dispatched the Scottish Benedictine monk James Robertson (on the advice of his brother Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley). Robertson, brought up at the Benedictine abbey at Regensburg in Germany, managed to pass through occupied Germany under the guise of "Adam Rohrauer", a dealer in cigars and chocolate. Robertson made contact with the Spanish general, the Marquis de la Romana, on the island of Funen, where the two agreed that the Spanish troops would defect and return to Spain on British ships. Robertson escaped to Helgoland (then a British possession) to inform Admiral Richard Goodwin Keats of the agreement, and a fleet of transports escorted by HMS Superb embarked 9,000 Spanish soldiers.

The imprisonment of Aubrey and Maturin in the Temple prison in Paris may echo the case of Captain Sidney Smith, captured on 19 April 1796 while attempting to cut out a French ship in Le Havre. Instead of exchanging him (as customary), the French took Smith to the Temple prison and charged him with arson for his burning of the fleet at Toulon in 1793. Smith remained held in Paris for two years, despite a number of efforts to exchange him and frequent contacts with both French Royalists and British agents.

In 1798, Royalists pretending to take him to another prison instead helped him to escape. They brought him to Le Havre, where he boarded a fishing boat and then transferred to a British frigate on patrol in the English Channel, arriving in London on 8 May 1798. Some historians have speculated that he allowed the French Republicans to capture him so that he could make contact with the Royalists.

Editions

• Audio Edition Recorded Books, LLC; Unabridged Audio edition narrated by Patrick Tull (ISBN 1402591845)
• 2011, USA, W. W. Norton & Company (ISBN 978-0-393-06376-9), Pub date 5 December 2011, e-book