The Happy Return
by C. S. Forester
June 1808, somewhere in the west of Nicaragua is a convenient place for spectacular naval battles. The Admiralty ordered Captain Horatio Hornblauer, who now commands thirty-six HMS Lydia cannons, to form an alliance with the mad Spanish landowner against the Spanish colonial government; Finding a waterway through the Central American Isthmus; and 'take, sink, burn or destroy' the fifty armed Spanish ships of the Natividad line, or face off against someone who is on trial. A rather terrible set of orders - even if the happily married captain is not distracted by the passenger she has to pick up in Panama: Lady Barbara Wellesley.
