Treason's Harbour (1983)

Treason's Harbour is the ninth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1983. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars.

While with Captain Jack Aubrey awaiting repairs on his ship in Malta, Stephen Maturin discovers that the island is home to a ruthless network of French spies. An unwilling French informer needs help from Maturin, who discovers her predicament and helps her. Meanwhile, a new Admiral arrives at Malta. He sends Aubrey on three missions across the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, one on borrowed ships, and two of the missions are traps. Aubrey escapes the predicaments, but Admiral Harte dies when his ship of the line is destroyed in an ambush. The high level double agent whose existence Maturin begins to suspect does not succeed in undoing either Maturin or Aubrey, yet.

After the reissue of the novel in 1992, it received strong praise. In mentioning the dramatic fate of Mr Hairabedian, one reviewer wryly states that nothing happens in the novel, but the novels are "filled with real people doing real things, brilliantly imagined and conveyed in crisp, clear, strong writing."

Plot summary

The Surprises wait at Malta while their ship is slowly repaired after their successful mission on the Ionian coast. Aubrey and Maturin meet Mrs Laura Fielding at music parties she holds. She is waiting for news of her husband, a naval lieutenant who is a prisoner-of-war in France. One of the three groups of French intelligence agents in Malta uses Fielding's plight to manipulate her into spying for them. Aubrey saves her huge dog Ponto from a fall in the cistern. This endears Aubrey to Ponto, leading the gossips of Malta to assume he is carrying on an affair with Mrs Fielding. She asks Maturin to help her satisfy the French agents. They let it appear to the French spies as if they are conducting an affair, and Maturin prepares false materials for her to pass on. The new Commander of the Mediterranean fleet, Admiral Sir Francis Ives and acting second secretary Andrew Wray, arrive in Malta with their own advisor on Turkish affairs. Once Aubrey learns that an earlier prize was accepted by the board, he has money to speed up repairs on Surprise. Before he leaves Malta, Graham describes Lesueur, a French agent known to him. Unbeknownst to Maturin, Wray meets with Lesueur, receives payments from him and learns what Maturin has done to French spies. Maturin is delighted to receive his diving bell, built on Edmond Halley's design. He and Heneage Dundas test it out from Dundas’s ship. It travels with Maturin on the next mission.

Aubrey is dispatched on a secret mission by Admiral Ives to capture a Turkish galley laden with French silver in the Red Sea. They sail on the Dromedary to Tina, and then walk across the Sinai Peninsula to meet the HEI ship Niobe at Suez. Aubrey takes command of Niobe in the Red Sea, with Turkish troops to aid on land. They spot the galley and give chase. Aubrey notices that the galley is using a drag sail to artificially slow its speed. Realizing the trickery, Aubrey sinks the galley to deny the French its silver. Maturin and Aubrey use the diving bell to retrieve the cargo, but find it is lead not silver, a complete trap. The galley had been in the sea for a month awaiting them, to lure them under French cannons on land. They reverse the challenging journey, offloading the disappointed Turkish troops at Suez, then cross the desert with no escort. Bedouin horsemen steal their camel train, so they reach Tina exhausted. Only Aubrey’s chest, with his chelengk award and the dead dragoman’s papers, is saved by Killick’s diligent effort. They return to Malta on Dromedary.

Admiral Ives tells Aubrey the sad news that Surprise is to return to England to be sold out of the service. Maturin is in a mood to gamble at cards. Wray loses a large sum of money to Maturin playing piquet, and is unable to pay his debt. Maturin asks for naval favours in return, like a ship for recently-promoted Pullings. Before dispatching Surprise to England, Ives asks Aubrey to take the Adriatic convoy up to Trieste, where he meets Captain Cotton of HMS Nymphe. Nymphe has just rescued the escaped prisoner-of-war, Lieutenant Charles Fielding. Maturin removes a bullet from the brave and jealous man. He hears the rumour of Aubrey's liaison with his wife and refuses to return to Malta on Surprise, challenging Aubrey to a duel when they next meet on land. On the return journey Captain Dundas, on HMS Edinburgh, tells Aubrey of a French privateer, which Aubrey then captures with Dryad in convoy. The chase delays Surprise into Malta, so the news of Lieutenant Fielding's rescue has begun to circulate. Maturin speeds to Mrs Fielding's house, but she is not home. Lesueur and Boulay, a double agent on the Governor's staff, arrive to kill her, as she is of no more use to them, and have already killed Ponto. Maturin quietly listens to their conversation until they leave. When she arrives, he takes her aboard the Surprise, saving her life.

Admiral Ives orders Aubrey to sail to Zambra on the Barbary Coast to persuade the Dey of Mascara not to molest British ships, in convoy with HMS Pollux, which is returning Admiral Harte to England. While Pollux waits at the entrance of the Bay of Zambra, the French Mars with two frigates fire on her, with a fierce ensuing battle. Pollux blows up, killing all 500 aboard, but not before she severely damages Mars. The two frigates chase Surprise deep into the bay until the heavier frigate runs aground on a reef. Her smaller consort deserts the fight. On the political advice of Maturin, Aubrey sets sail for Gibraltar. This ambush on a voyage known to so few makes it clear that someone highly placed in the British command betrayed them to the French. Maturin hopes Wray will find the traitor out and destroy the French spy networks.

Characters

See also Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series