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| Author | C. S. Forester |
|---|---|
| Genre | Nautical fiction |
Publication date | 1929 |
Brown on Resolution is a 1929nautical novel written byC. S. Forester, set duringWorld War I. The hero of the novel,Leading Seaman Albert Brown, is the sole able-bodied survivor of a sunkenRoyal Navywarship, who single-handedly delays its attacker, aGermancruiser, long enough to ensure its destruction by its pursuers.
The novel opens with Brown, wounded and dying, on fictional Resolution Island in theGalápagos Islands. The story is then told inflashback.
The first part of the story tells of Brown's birth, as a result of a liaison between his mother, Agatha Brown, and a Royal Navy officer,Lieutenant Commander Richard Saville-Samarez. It describes his upbringing in lateVictorian andEdwardianEngland, with Agatha as an unmarried mother pretending to be a widow, and her instilling into him a sense of duty to the Navy and to his country. As soon as he is old enough (fifteen years of age), Brown joins the Navy, and at the start of World War I is serving on the cruiserHMSCharybdis atSingapore.
In the second half of the storyCharybdis is sunk by the fictional Germanarmored cruiser SMSZiethen in the eastern Pacific, and Brown, along with two severely-wounded men, is picked up asPOWs by the German ship. As theZiethen was damaged in the exchange, her captain postpones hiscommerce raiding mission toAustralasian waters, and has to find a desertedanchorage to repair his ship. In the novel, he chooses the fictional Resolution Island in the Galápagos Islands. The resourceful Brown steals arifle and a small amount of ammunition, water and food, escapes, and makes his way ashore, where he is able to pick off exposed crew members who are trying to repair the ship's damagedhull. As her captain has alreadycareened his vessel, theZiethen's guns cannot be brought to bear on Brown, and Germanlanding parties are sent ashore to hunt him down. In Forester's description, Resolution Island is an almost-impenetrable tangle of sun-blasted sharp-edged lava blocks covered withcacti, making it extremely difficult for the Germans to locate Brown.
Brown is able to delay the repairs for two days, but is eventually mortally wounded by a lucky rifle shot from a German sailor as the crew is being recalled to the ship. He never learns that his actions delayed theZiethen long enough to ensure that she is intercepted and destroyed by a pursuing Royal Navy force. Coincidentally, the senior officer of the British force is the nowCaptain Saville-Samarez, Brown's father, although they never know of each other's existence.
As so often with Forester's novels, the action takes place against a background of carefully researched historical fact. During the early part of World War I, Germany had asmall squadron of modern vessels in the Far East. When war was declared, the larger vessels of the squadron set out to return to Europe. The light cruisersNürnberg,Leipzig andDresden, on detached duty, rejoined after brief periods of raiding, whileSMSEmden was detached to serve as a commerce raider. The fictionalZiethen is supposed to be on a similar mission.
Most of the German squadron was eventually destroyed at theBattle of the Falkland Islands, but the British eventually foundDresden anchored and essentially non-operational at anisolated Pacific island. The British then fired on the anchored ship, and unable to effectively fight back, her crew scuttled her.
The German cruiserZiethen described in the novel does not match any real German warship. She seems to more resemble the Austrian cruiserKaiserin Elizabeth, which was deployed extensively in the Pacific in the years leading up to WWI. She is a quite good match for the German cruiser "Kaiserin Augusta" which had extensive service in the far east and pacific stations.
This novel has some parallels to Forester'sDeath to the French. In both novels the hero is anenlisted man, cut off from friendly forces and acting alone. In both, the protagonist's dogged and surprisingly effective actions stem from instinctive shrewdness rather than conscious planning.
The novel has been filmed twice.John Mills played the title role in the 1935 version, calledBrown on Resolution.[1] The 1953 version which starredJeffrey Hunter as Brown, was calledSingle-Handed in the UK andSailor of the King in the US, and was set duringWorld War II.