Some trace the unofficial end of the British Empire to the mass mutiny among sailors of the Royal Navy's Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon, Scotland, in September 1931. Struggling to deal with the worsening depression, the government sought to institute cuts across the board (in the public sector as well as the Navy). While a 10 percent cut was a terrible burden for the lowest-paid ratings, those who had joined up before 1925 (and were on a different pay scale) essentially faced a 25 percent cut. Such a sacrifice would inevitably lead to not only hardship but probable homelessness for the sailors' families, and so the decision was made to organize a mass strike.

The mutiny was rather remarkable in its civility, as the mutineers treated officers with deference and continued to carry out essential duties -- they basically just prevented their ships from going to sea. The end result was a victory for the strikers, in that those on the old pay rate received only a 10 percent pay cut like everyone else, but the mutiny had long-lasting repercussions. A month later, Britain abandoned the gold standard, and a name change from the Atlantic Fleet to the Home Fleet a month later began an effort to put the embarrassing incident behind the Royal Navy.

Jannaway's Mutiny is a wonderfully human story that examines some of the causes of the mutiny, but more than anything it is a story of love and loss, class conflict and contrasting sides of human nature -- built around the life and career of a naval officer who finds himself somewhat at the focus of the mutiny. It is not Jannaway's mutiny per se, but he can certainly be seen as one revealing face behind the conflict that played out at Invergordon. Frank Jannaway was an officer, but he had come up the hard way -- from the lower decks, and he had in fact been forced to join the Navy in the first place. Living with his mother on the estate of Sir Jervis Yarrow, Jannaway had been given the opportunity to study at a good school and develop his impressive musical skills -- until Yarrow's daughter took an interest in him. Since any kind of relationship between Sir Jervis' daughter and his housekeeper's son simply would not do, Jannaway was quickly hustled into the Navy. Before that, he had already suffered much at the hands of Yarrow's arrogant son Roddy -- and on one occasion, he had in fact been molested by the older boy. As luck would have it, Jannaway eventually ended up serving under Captain Yarrow on board HMS Winchester, where he (like everyone else on board) was bullied and, following one tragedy, wrongly blamed for an incident which took the live of an old schoolmate. The men below liked and respected Jannaway, however, and he learned of the mutiny plans prior to the general strike; while he, as an officer, could take no part in such a display, he did play an integral role in how it came about and how it was handled.

Over the course of this historical novel, we follow the lives of Jannaway, Roddy Yarrow and Anita Yarrow. Anita's fancy for Jannaway led to his forced entry into the Navy, and she went on to somewhat disgrace her father with a failed marriage to an awful bugger of a man. Exiled to Malta, she is delighted to meet up with Jannaway again, and the two quickly fall in love. It is a love affair that Anita abruptly ends during their engagement period -- ostensibly because Jannaway is not of her class but in truth for a very different reason -- one she could not possibly tell him. And so it was that Jannaway remained in the Navy and came to serve under her brother at Invergordon.

Frankly, I was surprised at just how engrossing a read this turned out to be. The events of the mutiny itself pale in comparison to the ups and downs of these characters' lives, and the whole story reveals a great deal about class consciousness and society in early-20th century England. Charles Wheeler has really given us a fabulous work of historical fiction here, and I give Jannaway's Mutiny nothing less than my highest recommendation.