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The Mauritius Command
- Aubrey-Maturin Series, Book 4
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
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The Mauritius Command
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Summary
In The Mauritius Command, Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half-pay without a command until his friend, occasional intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a Commodore's pennant. But the difficulties of carrying out his orders are compounded by two of his own captains: one a pleasure-seeking dilettante, the other liable to provoke the crew to mutiny.
Based on an actual campaign of 1810 in the Indian Ocean, O'Brien's attention to the detail of early 19th-century life ashore and at sea is meticulous. This tale is as beautifully written and as gripping as any in the series; it also stands on its own as a superlative work of fiction.
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What listeners say about The Mauritius Command
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- L. Kelly
- 05-10-16
Chapter 9 fixed. Excellently read.
Fear not.
Purchased reluctantly due to reviews suggesting chapter 9 was missing, however Chapter 9 is now present and well.
Jerrom captures spirit of each character so well, whilst avoiding being too comical. Terrific job.
I need not recommend the story itself. These books are without peer.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr. N. W. Boothman
- 29-01-19
Wonderful
If you've got to book 4, you probably know the Aubrey-Maturin series and you'll enjoy this as much as any of the others. My only comment concerns Ric Jerrom's reading of it - either I've got used to him or this is the best yet. Or both. Only a lost star for the grisly attempts at McAdam's Northern Irish accent. Otherwise superb.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- WaterBloom
- 14-03-21
Great story and reading spoilt by 197 chapters
Excellently read, this (4th in the series) is well up to the high standard of the Aubrey-Maturin sequence, but almost wrecked (ha) by the absurd division into 197 tiny chapters, which makes it a dreadful voyage of exploration every time one loses one’s place, and makes the timer setting to the end of a chapter unusable.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr. T. Gettins
- 04-11-14
The end of chapter nine is missing.
Any additional comments?
Terrific vocal work by Ric Jerrom, who was an inspired choice for the Aubrey/Maturin novels.
Unfortunately due to a production error the end of chapter nine was missing in its entirety.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- "pop_novel_freak"
- 25-03-21
bad chapterisation
book is good but audibile have not followed the chapters but instead have inserted random chapters at a few minutes interval.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Villads Valur Korsholm Nielsen
- 02-06-15
chapter 9 missing a part!
A fantastic book, but it's missing the last part of chapter 9! which is the part that ties the last chapter together!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- battleeditor
- 01-03-15
Brilliant story, but you'll need the book too
An outstanding performance of a splendid story, marred only by the strange lack of the second half of chapter 9 because of a technical fault. Very surprised that this has not been remedied by the publisher.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Speaker No.5
- 23-08-21
Jerrom’s accents rip through the nautical lexicon..
..which constitutes O’Brian’s prose, like a thundering broadside through a French Man o’War.
The trick to enjoying O’Brian’s novels is knowing just enough of the dense terminology to pick out the brisk plot and deep character within. This is helped immeasurably by Jerrom’s turning of the narrative into an absolute stage production of voices, accents, invective and partois; delivered with verve and affection for the material. Nobody else does ‘surly belligerent sea dog currently three sheets to the wind’ with quite such humour and commitment.
Close your eyes and you can almost feel the sea air on your face. A book, and a production to get lost in -23rd August, 2.24am
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- sinbad4england
- 07-07-21
enjoyable romp but.........
An enjoyable romp but 'Stephen ' does waffle on a bit and when he goes off on one of his discourses I switch off for a while.
I find that as the series of books (although very good) go one 'so does Stephen' !
The narrator does a really good job and this adds to the enjoyment. The description of life onboard is so good as to transport you far and wide, along with the crew !
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dunc
- 09-04-19
My favourite since the first book
The first book was full of character development and real Naval story. Since then it's been good but too much of a soap opera too. This book had less of the latter which to me, puts this back on form.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Matt
- 05-10-21
Change of Narrator
I love this series. Best summer holiday read ever.
Unfortunately I started the Audible series with the narrator Patrick Tull. Ric Jerrom is a rubbish narrator and doesn't hold a candle to Mr Tull (no longer available through Audible). Listening to Mr Tull is like having a 'man of the sea' tell the story. Unlike Mr Jerrom, he doesn't try too hard to do the accents (really badly in Mr Jerrom's version) and this makes the story far more authentic.
I won't be buying more of the series unless the Patrick Tull version is reissued.
Friday November 4 2022
Have just tried to listen to this again. Have to say I'm appalled at just how bad this "Ric Jerrom" version is compared to the Patrick Tull version. The cringeable way he tries to do accents and doesn't even get close is just grating.
The Tull version is available elsewhere and for true fans of the series that is the way to go.
I'm guessing that Audible/Amazon make more margin on this version, they did have the Tull version originally.
Seems to be the way Audible is going, gettine cheaper, less quality recordings and dropping a lot of the content such as the New Yorker, the New York Times etc that made the sub worthwhile.
Will be dropping my sub soon. Their content shows they are content with feeding their customers merde.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- PJ
- 29-04-21
Jack flies the pendant
Excellent story gripping all the way.... wanted more. Ric Jerrom cannot do the Ulster Prodestant ascent very well but nonetheless the mostly vile character of MacAdam was in no way spoilt by the performance.
Going to listen to the story again now.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Taylor Britton
- 19-12-19
best action of the series so far
best action of the series so far. not that i mind the romance plots and slow character building of the previous novels, but the naval combat and surgical scenes in this one were particularly exciting and dynamic
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Jefferson
- 23-08-14
Literate Age of Sail Buddy Comfort Food with Bite
The fourth entry in Patrick O'Brien's Age of Sail books about the bosom buddies Jack Aubrey (navy man through and through) and Stephen Maturin (surgeon, naturalist, spy), The Mauritius Command (1977), probably features the most action in the series up to this point. The novel begins domestically enough, with Stephen visiting Jack at his poky Hampshire cottage where he lives with his wife Sophie, their twin girls ("bald babies" with "pale, globular faces," turnip-like noses, and the air of being "infinitely old, or members of another genus"), her obnoxious niece Cecelia, and her atrocious mother Mrs. Williams. They're struggling to get by on Jack's half-pay (as a post-captain without a ship), because Mrs. Williams lost all her money and Sophie's dowry in a foolish investment. Their hives house cobwebs rather than bees; their vegetable garden is rife with caterpillars and flies; their cow is cadaverous and dry. Jack, whose natural medium is the sea, is clumsy and lugubrious on land and spends long hours in his jury-rigged observatory gazing longingly at passing ships.
Luckily for Jack, Stephen has managed to get him an important commission: he is to captain a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope, where he will join a squadron of British ships to help them give Bonaparte and company a black eye by taking the French island colonies of and around Mauritius. Stephen is to deal with intel, propaganda, and diplomacy, while Jack is to be the Commodore of the entire action. This is but a temporary post, after which he will resume being a post-captain, but success may land him a baronetcy. It surely gives Jack a host of new worries and frustrations, partly because he frets at not being able to take part in the plans he designs, partly because he must give orders to captains who are the lords of their own ships and hope that they will perform well. It is thus vital that he accurately assess their strengths and weaknesses, and they don't get on well together. In fact, Lord Clonfert envies, admires, fears, worships, and hates Jack and feels an over-mastering desire to impress and surpass him, which, combined with his dashing behavior and manic-depressive personality, makes for a compelling character.
Throughout the novel O'Brien liberally (though never tediously) sprinkles age of sail details about food, ships, tactics, and the like, as well as about Stephen's interest in flora and fauna and human nature. And, of course, plenty of action: ferocious, "hammer and tongs" naval battles, delicately coordinated land and sea attacks, aborted actions, cat and mouse games, and more. O'Brien never repeats a battle scene, whether by its events or by how he narrates them. Now he thrusts us up close and personal into real-time action, so that we hear the thundering broadsides crashing into our ship and see the deadly wooden splinters flying around and smell the powder and blood; now he stops just before an action is about to begin and lets us see what happened in the fight by reading over Jack's shoulder as he writes an enthusiastic but circumspect letter about it to Sophie. Some of the most suspenseful scenes involve transferring landlubber Stephen from one vessel to another.
The most enjoyable part of O'Brien's books is the rich friendship between Stephen and Jack as they age, share more failures and triumphs, and gain more (not always accurate) insights into each other's character. For example, "Jack loved him, and had not the least objection to granting him all the erudition in the world, while remaining inwardly convinced that in all practical matters other than physic and surgery Stephen should never be allowed out alone." Another funny example occurs when Stephen warns Jack, "To swim so soon after dinner, and such a dinner? I cannot advise it. You are very corpulent; full of gross, viscous humours after these weeks and months of Poirier's cooking. . . . dinners have killed more men than ever Avicenna healed." Stephen's continuing ignorance about the navy is mildly exasperating to Jack and comforting to the reader. And they give each other warm endearments: "my dear," "joy," and "brother."
But O'Brien avoids writing simple bromance sea adventures by including the horrifying wounds resulting from naval warfare, the slimy politicking behind promotions and appointments, the insoluble psychological mystery of Clonfert, and the occasional misanthropy of Stephen, as when Jack says, "Without there were babies, we should have no next generation," and Stephen replies, "So much the better, when you consider the state to which we've reduced the world they must live in, the bloody-minded, wolfish stock from which they spring, and the wicked inhuman society that will form them."
With a sensual poetry O'Brien evokes the experience of being at sea in the age of sail, whether feeling so cut off from the land as to be in another world, being becalmed, surviving a hurricane, or getting under way in a frigate:
"The Raisonable began to speak as she bore up for Rodriguez, spreading sail after sail: the masts complained, the taut rigging sang with a greater urgency, the sound of the water racing along her side mounted to a diffused roar; the complex orchestra of cordage, wood under stress, moving sea and wind, all-pervading sound, exalting to the sea-borne ear."
Readers who like authentic, character-driven historical sea fiction (especially like that by Forester and Lambdin set during the Napoleonic wars) must like O'Brien's books, but should begin with the first in the series, Master and Commander, for although each book is self-contained, all work together to tell one composite story.
The reader Ric Jerrom is flawless; only he can be Jack and Stephen and O'Brien's narrator for me.
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