A delightful surprise - I was curious to read this because I enjoyed Sailor of the King, based on it. It has a reputation of a stiff upper lip tale which I guess it is - but it's extremely well written, with evocative descriptions and fast pace, anchored with research. It's also surprisingly racy, downbeat and cynical - Brown's mother meets a sailor while on holiday and decides to spend five hot days in bed with him. The sailor is dim but a good military guy with excellent prospects - when he sinks the ship at the end he's mostly glad because it improves his chance of a post career cushy job and fame. The mother decides to raise the kid on her own, is devoted to him, has a financial knock back but hangs in there, forces him into the navy, and dies very young of cancer - in part because, Forster makes clear, she was too proud to seek treatment early.
Brown is a very average sort of guy - amiable, obedient to his mother. He's a good sailor with solid prospects, keen for the promotional opportunities that war gives him. When he sneaks away to Absolution Island he could just hide out but he decides to do his duty even though he knows it'll probably mean death. He does it, and dies - again, mostly due to bad luck, from a bullet by a slacker German disobeying orders (I love this touch). If the Germans had gotten away half an hour earlier they would've been okay. And the kicker is, no one will know about Brown's heroism - the Germans knew but they are all killed in the ensuing attack. It's really great stuff.
The action sequences on Resolution are superb - the escape (relatively easy because the Germans don't really care), slipping into the water, climbing through the bushes. Forster is very good making a far fetched scenario realistic - he goes to great pains describing the German's slackness initially, the fact Brown is helped by the rough vegetation on the island which makes it hard to get through and provides excellent hiding places for Brown. The sequences are logically worked out - he escapes, finds a good spot, starts shooting the next morning, manages to fight off an initial boarding party due to his location, then changes locations over night and fights again, succeeds in taking out over 30 Germans.
You do get the sense it should be a short story - the stuff about the mother having an affair does feel a bit padded out. It's not as though Forster adds much character to Brown - for instance, he has a mate Ginger who survives the attack but with half his face blown off... Forster goes "oh they were friends for two years" but that's it. Still, a fantastic adventure book.
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