Horatio Hornblower is posted to HMS Atropos, the smallest vessel in the Royal Navy that merits command by a post-captain, as he salvages treasure from the Mediterranean Sea.

The funeral consists of a procession on the Thames between Greenwich Pier and Whitehall Steps, during which the ceremonial barge conveying Nelson's coffin springs a leak.

In the middle of the night, he makes a daring escape by an extremely perilous route, avoiding both ship and fort, and outsmarting the Turks.

Following Hornblower's delivery of the treasure at Gibraltar, he helps capture a Spanish ship, the Castilla, and makes his way into a Sicilian port for repairs.

[1] Confusingly, the obscure short story "The Hand of Destiny" (1940) also describes an entirely different action featuring Lieutenant Hornblower capturing the Castilla.

Forester, apparently, would retcon Hornblower's history, overwriting the events of his short stories in subsequent novel-length works.