The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Missing Merchantman, by Harry Collingwood

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Title: The Missing Merchantman

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: W.H. Overend

Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #21063]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MISSING MERCHANTMAN ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

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