Flying Colours

The eighth chronological installment in C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series finds the nautical hero languishing in a Spanish fortress, having surrounded the HMS Sutherland to the French. Napoleon has charged the British Navy Officer with piracy, and a sham French court has sentenced him to death. Hornblower is soon put aboard a carriage to Paris, where he will await execution. Accompanying him, and facing the same fate, are Lieutenant William Bush and his loyal coxswain Brown. When a snowstorm strikes and the carriage becomes stuck, the three men seize the opportunity to overpower the guards and launch a daring escape.

Yet with the weather worsening, they're forced to take shelter in a nearby chateau. Luckily, the chateau belongs to a Count who is sympathetic to the English, and he offers to take the men in for the winter. As the weeks go by, Hornblower finds himself falling for the Count's widowed daughter-in-law, Marie. Yet when spring arrives, the men must once again set forth for England. Disguising themselves as Dutch customs officials working for the French, they plot their most daring scheme yet: to steal a 10-gun cutter and sail it out of the harbor towards the blockading English fleet.