Hi Bernard,

I just “opened” my first Christmas present this year – I finished reading Sharpe’s Christmas and Sharpe’s Ransom (both for the first time).  Very, very satisfying!

I know that several commenters here have asked you to “finish” ‘Hornblower during the Crisis’, C.S. Forester’s last unfinished novel.  I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time now however, that a manuscript finishing the novel was written by Ellis K. Meacham, author of the Percival Meriweather “Bombay Marine” Trilogy shortly after Forester’s passing.  At least that’s what I recall, although I can’t find now where I learned that.  My memory is that he asked permission of Dorothy Forester to publish his manuscript but was turned down, and that is what prompted him to start writing about Meriweather.

What I know for sure though, is that in the second chapter of the first novel, “The East Indiaman” as Meriweather is rowed out to his new Command, we read, “Anchored below her, close by, was another ship with a boat alongside, a Royal Navy sloop.  He heard the squeal of a boatswain’s pipe and looked around to so see side boys manning the gangway, while a tall figure in a uniform trimmed with gold lace, from which the pale January sun glinted, climbed the ladder”.  The coxswain followed his glance.  ‘Atropos, twenty-two, he volunteered.  ‘She’s sailing to the Mediterranean to fish up treasure from a wreck.’  There were few secrets kept from these watermen.”

So, there is probably the last glimpse of Hornblower we ever get, and I thought I would offer that as a Christmas present to you and your readers!

Merry Christmas / Happy Hannukah / Happy Diwali / Happy Kwanza / Happy Festivus everyone!

Paul D Wilcox