"The author does a creditable job of dramatizing life in Samuel Pepys's navy, and by the explosive climax, Quinton has developed into a hero worth rooting for and meeting again in further exploits."

--Publishers Weekly

"Davies, steeped in the language of the era, proceeds to depict the drama with confidence and verve, and he fashions a convincing crew of personalities and types... Along the way, Davies takes every opportunity to feed the reader some British dynastic history, but the writing is natural and well worth the instruction. A delightful tale."

--Kirkus Reviews

"Gentleman Captain is a beautifully written and masterfully told story full of wicked intrigue, gripping suspense, stirring action, deft plot twists, and incredibly rich and compelling characters. It so effortlessly transports the reader to another place and time, you won’t want to put it down until you have reached its thrilling conclusion. J. D. Davies promises this is just the first volume in the journals of Matthew Quinton. It is a brilliant beginning to what is destined to be a classic series of nautical adventure."

--Eric Jay Dolin, author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America

"J.D. Davies's depiction of Restoration England and the British navy is impeccable, his characters truly live and breathe, and the plot kept me in suspense. Gentleman Captain is one of the rare books that I have read with a smile on my face from cover to cover. I could not recommend it more."

--Edward Chupack, author of Silver: My Own Tale as Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder

"A splendid addition to nautical adventure, and a grand story, to boot!"

—Dewey Lambdin, author of The Baltic Gambit

We would strike the rocks, the ship would break apart, and we would all

drown. Of this, I was certain.

 His Majesty’s ship the Happy Restoration was beating up to Kinsale

harbour, into the teeth of a hard northerly gale that had blown up with

sudden, unforgiving fury. We had weathered the Old Head, somehow

avoided smashing ourselves to pieces on Hake Head, and were now

edging toward the chops of the harbour mouth itself. Vast seas drove

the ship every way at once, the timbers screaming against the waters

that sought to tear them apart.

 On the quarterdeck, we three men tried desperately to keep our feet,

clinging to whatever stood fast, fighting the bitter and freezing Irish

rain that drove straight into our faces. There was the ship’s master, John

Aldred, splendidly confident in his ability to bring us safe to anchor, as

drunk as Bacchus after a rough night in Southwark. There was the best

of his master’s mates, Kit Farrell, my own age, watching the shore and

the sails and the rigging with a strange dread in his eyes. And there stood

I, or tried to stand, clinging desperately to a part of the ship I could

scarce, in my fright and inexperience, have named if called upon to do

so. Matthew Quinton, aged twenty-one, captain of his Majesty’s ship.

Strange as it sounds, the prospect of my imminent demise was almost

less dreadful to me than the prospect of surviving. Survival would mean

having to report to my superiors that we had spectacularly missed our

rendezvous with the Virginia and Barbados merchant fleets, which we

were meant to escort to the Downs in that year of grace 1661. They

were probably still out in the endless ocean, or sunk by the weather, or

the French, or the Spanish, or the Dutch, or the corsairs, or the ghost

of Barbarossa.

 A torrent of spray ended my aimless reflections in time for me to hear

Aldred’s latest pronouncement. ‘Be not afraid, Captain! Plenty of sea

room, if we tack but shortly. Th is breeze will die from the west as fast as

it sprang up, as God is my judge.’

 Aldred’s eyes were glazed, not from the salt spray that stung us mercilessly,

but from too much victualler’s ale and bad port wine. Kit Farrell

moved behind him, braced himself against a huge wave, reached me and

shouted above the roar of the sea, ‘Captain, he’s mistaken – if we try to

tack now, we’ll strike on the rocks for certain – we shouldn’t have had so

much sail still aloft, not even in the wind as it was . . .’

 But the tempest relented as he spoke, just a little, and a shout that

Aldred would never have heard before now carried to his ears as clear as

day. The old man turned and glowered at Farrell.

 ‘Damn, Master Farrell, and what do you know of it?’ he cried. ‘How

many times have you brought ships home into Kinsale haven, in far worse

than this?’ We would have the Prince Royal next, I feared. ‘Don’t you know

I first went to sea on the Prince Royal, back in the year Thirteen, taking the

Princess Elizabeth over to Holland for her marriage? Near fifty years ago,

Mister Farrell!’ And next it would be Drake. ‘Don’t you know I learned my

trade under men who’d sailed with Drake? Drake himself!’ And last would

come the Armada: Aldred’s drunken litany of self-regard was almost as

predictable as dusk succeeding dawn. ‘Blood of Christ, I’ve messed with

men who were in the Armada fight. So damn me, Master Farrell, I know

my business! I know the pilotage of Kinsale better than most men alive,

I know how to bring us through a mere lively breeze like this, and God

strike me down if I don’t!’ And as an afterthought, as the wind and the

spray rose once more, he leaned over to me, gave me a full measure of

beer-vapour breath, and said, ‘Begging your pardon, Captain Quinton.’

 I was too fearful to give any sort of pardon, or to remind Aldred

yet again that my grandfather had also fought the Armada, and sailed

with Drake to boot. Drake was the most vain and obnoxious man he

ever knew, my grandfather said. After himself, that is, my mother would

always add.

 The ever-strengthening wind struck us in full force once more,

snatching a man off the cross-beam that those who knew of such things

called the foretopsail yard. He flailed his arms against the mighty gale,

and for the briefest of moments it looked as though he had fulfilled the

dream of the ancients, and achieved flight. Then the wind drove him

into the next great wave bearing down on us, and he was gone. All the

while, Farrell and Aldred traded insults about reefs and courses, irons

and stays, all of it the language of the Moon to my ears.

 Kit Farrell started to rage. ‘Damn yourself to hell, Aldred, you’ll kill

us all!’ He turned to me. ‘Captain, for God’s sake, order him to bear

away! We’ve too little sea room, for all of Aldred’s bluster. If we brade

up close all our sails and lie at try with our main course, then we can

run back into open sea, or make along the coast for the Cove of Cork or

Milford. Easier harbours in a northerly, Captain!’

 Uncertainty covered me like a shroud. ‘Our orders are for Kinsale—’

 ‘Sir, not at the risk of endangering the ship!’

 Still I hesitated. Aldred began to snap his orders through a speaking

trumpet. After eight months at sea, four of them in command of this

ship, I was now vaguely aware of the theory and practice of tacking. I

remembered Aldred’s tipsy and relatively patient explanation. No ship

can sail right into the wind, Captain, nor more than six points on either side

of it. To go towards the wind, you must sail on diagonals. Like a comb, sir,

like the teeth of a comb. Make your way up the teeth to the head of the comb.

I had seen it done often enough, but never in wind that came straight

from the flatulence of hell’s own bowels.

 Kit Farrell watched the men on the masts and the yards as they

battled equally with those few of our sails that were not yet reefed, as

they said, and to preserve themselves from the fate of their shipmate,

our Icarus. Between the huge waves that struck me and pulled me and

blinded me and knocked the breath out of me, I looked on helplessly

at the activity about the ship. I could see only sodden men taking in

and letting out sodden canvas in a random fashion. Farrell, bred at

sea since he was nine, saw a different scene. ‘Too slow, Captain – the

wind’s come on too strong, and too fast – too many raw men, too

much sail aloft even for a better crew to take in or reef in time – and

the ship’s too old, too crank—’

 The spray and rain eased for a moment. I saw the black shore of

County Cork, so much closer than it had been a minute before. Waves

that were suddenly as high as our masts broke themselves on the rocks

with a dreadful roaring. I ran my hand through my drenched and

thinning hair, for both hat and periwig were long lost to the wind.

 Aldred was slurring a mixture of oaths and orders, the former rapidly

outweighing the latter. Farrell turned to me again, his face red

from whip-lashes of rain. ‘Captain, we’ll strike for sure – we can’t

make the tack, not now – order him to bear away, sir, in the name of

dear heaven—’

 I opened...