I’ve done it. I’ve finished the final (completed) volume of Patrick O’Brian’s twenty-volume series of maritime adventures, featuring those great companions Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. I was worried that I would feel a sense of anti-climax  – after all, O’Brian did not intend this to be the final volume, and he was part way through writing the 21st book when he died. Instead, while I am disappointed to have reached the end, I find myself gratified by the conclusion of the book, which sees Jack finally on his way to hoist his flag as an Admiral (I think the title rather acts as a spoiler, there!). Other story-lines, such as Stephen’s new-found love and whether or not the object of his affections will agree to his proposal of marriage, were clearly intended to be resolved in planned future volumes. Alas, on that score Stephen is left dangling.

In Blue at the Mizzen Jack and Stephen resume their journey to assist the republican movement in Chile, building up its navy to resist the Spanish Royalists in Peru. With peace breaking out in Europe, much of the Royal Navy is being paid off and Jack is lucky to have a command at all; being on the far side of the world, ostensibly on a hydro-graphical survey mission, also reduces any risk of Jack being overlooked in the stiff competition for promotion to Admiral. The journey around Cape Horn to the Pacific is challenging for the crew of the Surprise, but they make it through, and once arrived in Chile Maturin and his colleague Amos Jacob immerse themselves in the complex local politics, while Jack does what he does best, working with the nascent Chilean navy to begin to make them ‘right seamen’, and finding time to capture a few prizes along the way.

The climax of Blue at the Mizzen is a cutting-out expedition conceived by Jack and executed in conjunction with Chilean Supreme Director Bernardo O’Higgins, one of the most notable examples of an historical figure appearing in O’Brian’s pages. Reports of the success of the expedition must reach the Admiralty, and at the end of the book, Jack receives instruction to proceed to Buenos Aires and raise his flag as a Rear Admiral of the Blue, the culmination of his hard work as a fighting captain in all the time we have followed his career. It’s a fitting conclusion to this wonderful series, and although we can speculate how O’Brian might have continued things had he lived longer, this does turn out to be a good place to end it. The time will come when I will feel the need to read all twenty of the Aubrey-Maturin novels again, in short order, as it has taken me nearly four years to finish the series (my Dad just read them all in six months!), and it’s a wonderful thing to be able to look forward too at some unspecified date. A consummate pleasure.

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