INSPIRATION FOR MY UPCOMING NOVEL - 'DIAMOND ROCK'
- Paul Weston
- Jul 26
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 4
Inspiration - you just can’t avoid it – that is if you are a writer of historical naval fiction and you are sailing to, and then around the West Indies. That’s how I felt when we sailed our forty footer, Kim, across the Atlantic from Lanzarote to Grenada, and then cruised in the West Indies. All of my novels are set in places I have sailed to (Paul Weston Naval Fiction)
but it seemed during last winter's trip that inspiration was everywhere - the boat alone in the Atlantic feeling what Kipling called ‘the heel of the North East Trade’, and what I call ‘rolling horribly’, the night sky blazing with stars, and of course the vicious black squalls.
Being taken aback during a squall on a dark night in the Atlantic is one thing in a modern yacht with steel rigging and Dacron sails, forewarned of its approach by radar, but what must it have been like on an undermanned French frigate, sailing armee en flute to carry supplies for Admiral Villeneuve’s fleet?
From landfall on Grenada, its indented southern coast formerly the haunt of pirates and privateers, via the unspoiled beauty of Dominica, its evocative lookout at Fort Shirley giving a spectacular view of the Iles des Saintes where Rodney won his famous victory, to the Sir Francis Drake Channel in the British Virgin Islands where Drake refitted his ships ready for action against the Spanish galleons, everything is redolent of naval history.
True, the history of the Caribbean, like much history, is often very dark, from the annihilation of the indigenous people to the horrible business of the slave trade and slavery itself, and probably none darker than that of Martinique and Guadeloupe, where much of my new book Diamond Rock (release October 2025) is set.
And Diamond Rock itself? Sailing in the windy channel between the island and the shore of Martinique I wondered how Commodore Hood could even think that it would be possible to land on, and then fortify the Island, even with the undoubted abilities of Lieutenant Maurice at his disposal. But the Royal Navy did it, hoisting 24 pounder guns weighing several tons from the deck of an anchored ship to the precipitous summit, 600 feet above sea level, building stone defensive works, a barracks and hospital, and installing an early version of a cable car. It is not surprising that HMS Diamond Rock, dominating the approaches to France’s main base in the Caribbean, only a few miles from Empress Josephine’s birthplace, was such a source of anger for Napoleon that he ordered Admiral Villeneuve to make capturing it a priority.
Admiral Villeneuve … the book is set in 1805, and Admiral Villeneuve and his fleet played a major part of the events leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar, events which largely unfolded in the West Indies, and through which the story of my book, Diamond Rock, is entwined.
Broadly speaking, in Kim I’ve sailed the same route as Villeneuve did in 1805, with Nelson in pursuit of him, from Toulon in the Mediterranean to the West Indies, and then north along the island chain. Villeneuve was slower to the Caribbean than Kim, and Nelson considerably faster, but nevertheless I think the passage gave some insight into the fleets’ experiences.
The boisterous and often rough passages between the islands have not changed, and I find it easy to imagine Oleander heeling under a press of sail, speeding through the Dominica Channel taking dispatches south, or hard on the wind, making a passage towards Antigua.
Aboard Kim anchored in the enclosed bay of Grand cul de sac Marin in the north of Guadeloupe, alone and surrounded by mangroves, awaiting the passage of bad weather, I could not fail to imagine what it must have been like in 1805, and thinking how Snowden, in his dinghy, might have made his way through the mysterious Salt River to the south of the Island, with the chance of escaping to Prince Rupert’s Bay in Dominica.
And Prince Rupert’s Bay itself, evocative beyond measure, named after Charles I’s general, who made it the headquarters for his piratical naval adventure. A windy but safe roadstead, well watered, used by European mariners since Columbus sighted it one Sunday at the end of his second voyage.
Nevis, birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, and Nelson’s often unhappy wife, Fanny. She married Nelson here in 1787, but the Island may have raised mixed emotions for Nelson as, in his role as enforcer of the Navigation Acts, he had been a visitor to the court there. We anchored off Pinney’s Beach, named after John Pinney, a friend of Fanny’s family.
Finally, Anse a la Barque. A small cove, not much frequented by cruising yachts, but in my limited experience the least uncomfortable anchorage on the west coast of Guadeloupe, much smaller, but free of the swell which finds its way into Deshaies in the north. Though deserted apart from a few small fishing boats, a pair of leading lights in well-constructed lighthouses hints at a more important past, as does the remains of a substantial jetty undoubtedly built for steamers.
We went ashore and, near the lighthouse on the northern headland, saw the remains of a breastwork with several cannons scattered around. To my astonishment, they had been spiked, and several of them were broken, the barrels shattered near the trunnions. To see cannons in this state, not in a museum or carefully restored historic site, bespeaking of untold violence in that peaceful place, was something which I knew I had to use.
