The Missing Merchantman

By Harry Collingwood ________________________________________________________________________ Harry Collingwood is a superlatively good writer of books about the sea because he was himself a working designer of ships, and a shipwright. This makes his style extremely authoritative.

In this book the crew of a vessel, meaning in this case the deckhands, got it into their heads that the captain and officers of merchant vessels were paid far too much, and that ordinary deckhands ought to be paid on the same scale. In other hands they had been "robbed of fair wages" for hundreds of years. They quite forgot the education and skill that goes into the training of an officer, as well as the taking of responsibility. So they take the ship, making themselves essentially into pirates. The officers and passengers, being resourceful people, manage somehow to work their way out of this predicament, and eventually to bring their ship back home, where she had been posted as "Missing" for some considerable time.

As always with this author the book makes an excellent audiobook. ________________________________________________________________________ THE MISSING MERCHANTMAN

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

CHAPTER ONE.

INTRODUCTORY.

This story opens on a glorious day about the middle of July; and Weymouth, with its charming bay, was looking its very best. A gentle southerly breeze was blowing; the air was clear--just warm enough to render a dip in the sea the quintessence of luxury--and so laden with ozone and the wholesome scent of the sea that to breathe it was like imbibing a draught of elixir vitae. The east land was in itself a picture as it stretched across the horizon in front of the town, its lofty chalk-cliffs and swelling downs, the latter dotted here and there with a solitary farm-house or a clump of trees, gleaming softly through the clear transparent atmosphere in a thousand varied hues of green, and creamy white, and ruddy neutral, which gradually merged into a series of delicate pearly-greys as the eye followed the bold outline to where Saint Alban's Head sloped down into the azure sea. The noble bay, gently ruffled by the morning breeze, shimmered and sparkled brilliantly in the strong unclouded sunlight, its rippling wavelets chasing each other shoreward in long lines until they plashed with a soothing murmur into mimic breakers upon the broad, smooth, firm expanse of sand, whereon happy children were disporting themselves, bare-footed, with boat, and spade, and bucket, to their innocent hearts' content.