Wager

by Richard Woodman

Overview

Captain "Cracker Jack" Kemball of the tea clipper Erl King races Captain Richards of the Seawitch from Shanghai to London. The wager: his daughter's hand in marriage. While the fastest vessels ever built storm across the oceans, Hannah Kemball learns tiffs is a game with no rules, that will be won by murder, mayhem and deceit...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574090802
Publisher:	Sheridan House, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/25/1999
Series:	Mariners Library Fiction Classic
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Captain Richard Martin Woodman retired in 1997 from a 37-year nautical career. Woodman's Nathaniel Drinkwater series is often compared to the work of the late Patrick O'Brian. Woodman is the author of some two dozen nautical novels, as well as several nonfiction books. Unlike many other modern naval historical novelists, such as C.S. Forester or O'Brian, he has served afloat. He went to sea at the age of sixteen as an indentured midshipman and spent eleven years in command. His experience ranges from cargo-liners to ocean weather ships and specialist support vessels to yachts, square-riggers, and trawlers. Said Lloyd's List of his work: "As always, Richard Woodman's story is closely based on actual historical events. All this we have come to expect—and he adds that special ambience of colourful credibility which makes his nautical novels such rattling good reads."

Read an Excerpt

HANNAH Kemball leaned on the teak rail that ran round the poop of the tea-clipper Erl King and stared across the muddy waters of the Whangpo River at the skyline of Shanghai. Unconsciously her fingers caressed the bare wood, in gentle imitation of the daily cleaning it received from the apprentices who, under the eye of Chief Mate Enright, scoured it with a mixture of sand and sea-water rubbed with sail canvas. The river fascinated her, for its endless succession of changing scenes possessed an eternal quality. The curious batwing sails of the big junks moved upstream with a patience that seemed, in its infinity of effort, an embodiment of China as something too vast to be comprehended. Amid their slow majesty lesser sampans bobbed under sail or oar, the latter sculled tirelessly into the implacable current. Many of these, Hannah noticed, were handled by women, black-clad, pearshaped figures with babies secured to their backs. Several seemed permanently stationed under the overhanging counterstern of the Erl King, the women looking up expectantly as, with one arm twisting the long yuloh over the sampan's stern, they held the other outstretched in the universal supplication of the beggar. Galley scraps, coins or wooden dunnage — almost anything could be turned into the necessities of life by these thrifty and industrious people with their ingenious talent for improvisation. Hannah shook her head; she had already tossed a few pence at one such woman, but her virtuous act was immediately confronted by another's need as an endless succession of broad, flat faces sought her compassion. There was nothing left on the deck of the ship since Mr Enright had put a stop to the apprentices throwing planks of dunnage into the river. She shook her head again, exasperated by the persistence of one particular woman. 'No,' she called, 'nothing. .. no-thing,' adding in imitation of the ship's crew, 'no have got.' Still the woman looked up, her broad feet splayed upon the deck of the cockleshell craft, her shapeless black samfoo pyjamas high-buttoned at the neck and fluttering loosely about her body as it swayed to the rocking of the sampan. Her brown right arm swung in a ceaseless expenditure of energy as it twisted the long yuloh, holding the boat motionless against the current. Her left hand remained extended, palm open. Behind her russet face and tightly drawn-back hair, Hannah could see the bobbing head of her baby. 'Please Missee. .. for baby. . .' Hannah looked about her. On the far side of the poop, beyond the mizen mast, Mr Munro's back showed he was busy. The men on deck were milling around the galley door with their mess-kids anticipating dinner. She could act unobserved, for she was prompted by a sudden surge of pity for the unfortunate woman below her, and her eye had fallen upon the white hemp line, neatly coiled in its varnished box beside the wheel. She slipped aft, hesitating momentarily, aware that she was about to act imprudently, for the log-line was an important item of the clipper's equipment. She swept the thought aside. A spare log and line lay in a box in her father's cabin and the pathetic situation of the coolie woman touched her. She bent and picked up the end of the line, waving its brass impeller at the woman. The coolie woman nodded vigorously and began to scull closer. Hannah bent and picked up an armful of coils, throwing them over the side as fast as she was able. Then, with a pretended innocence ' she resumed her place at the starboard rail. Below her the woman scooped at the soupy water, gathering in the tangle of white rope. She had forsaken the yuloh which trailed on its lashing, and the sampan drifted slowly downstream. On her frantically moving back the tiny head of her baby seemed to nod a wild and abandoned farewell. 'You shouldn't have done that, Miss Kemball. It'll cause a deal of trouble.' She turned, flushing with guilt, and looked into the face of Mr Munro. His bronze eyes accused her from beneath the peak of his cap. 'It's barratry,' Munro added, 'the fraudulent practice of a mariner to the prejudice of the ship's owner.' 'Then it doesn't apply to me,' she replied quickly, 'I'm no mariner, Mr Munro. Besides, I've done it now.' 'Aye, but 'tis others who'll be blamed, Miss.'

Editorial Reviews

The sea scenes rate high marks; and the historical background is inlaid with an abundance of well-chosen detail. Altogether, this is a feast for maritime fiction buffs.

Booklist

Brilliantly told, the story catches every nuance. A convincing and compulsive seafaring story.

Oxford Times

The sea scenes rate high marks; and the historical background is inlaid with an abundance of well-chosen detail. Altogether, this is a feast for maritime fiction buffs.

Booklist