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Buller's Guns

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Richard Hough passed away in 1999 and since his passing we have closed ranks on our naval interest shelf. His studies of naval history included both scholarly analyses and highly readable and exciting historical novels woven around actual naval exploits.
In this book we find a portrait of the Royal Navy at the height of its power and arrogance in the Victorian era. The central characters are two young men: Buller, a ranking officer from the privileged class, and Maclewin, a common "rating" seaman. They rise together in the ranks through many campaigns and, despite their disparate social backgrounds, they form a bond of loyalty in the height of a decisive battle. The story is rich in accurate historical detail and provides insight into the development of the Royal Navy into the finely honed modern naval force that took on the German High Seas Fleet in August 1914.
You don't have to be an afficianado of British naval history to be hooked up to the last sentence of this book. It is far more than an echo of the ripping, heroic Horatio Hornblower stories of C. S. Forester. Hough's book heightens the excitement with well-developed fictional characters posed against an accurate historical backdrop of swirling life-and-death sea battles.