The hard, unblinking sun fixed the white buildings around the harbour in a swimming heat-haze, making the windows glitter and twist, as if in pain. Even the mean, squalid little streets, crammed with their surging streams of colourful humanity, could not escape, although the shopfronts crouched i...
The water was calm with just a deep swell like heavy breathing to change the hues of its dark blue water. In spite of her clean lines, the ship was pushing up a great moustache of foam at her bows, with the wake streaming away from her powerful screws like something attached to her hull. For the ...
It was hard to keep a sense of direction, the helm going this way and that, zigzagging and yet holding a mean course and bearing with the frothing wake of the next ahead. The tracer criss-crossed from every angle, the sharp rattle of cannon and machine-gun fire closing from all sides, as if 366 w...
Like the nearby chairs, the desk was almost covered with books, folders, and separate pads of signals, arranged in order of importance or urgency. He stared around the day cabin, where he had been working without a break since he had been piped aboard only this afternoon. The cabin was huge, but ...
This is probably because his first book was to have been the one, or because he never expected it to be published at all. The writing of my first novel, A Prayer for the Ship, was a gentle and leisurely task. I had no previous experience, other than short stories, and had nobody to point out the ...
Marriott gripped his seat and watched the hundreds of figures at work with picks and shovels, while bulldozers and tractors stirred up even more dust in the hazy sunshine. It felt like an age since they had put to sea to make a rendezvous with the coaster Ronsis, and yet nothing had changed, or ...
It was cold in spite of the stout walls, even for late January, and to Blackwood it felt like the nearness of death. Instead of showing a steady improvement, Blackwood knew his health and his memory were faulty. Days and places overlapped, and the slow passing of time meant nothing. He glanced ar...
The Asdic compartment reported one vessel after another, and although it was more than likely that most of them were coasters or fishermen, it only needed one to be a warship. The air throughout the boat was heavy and stale. They had been on silent routine for most of the time, with fans and unne...
‘They must be fast asleep!’ A seaman at the voicepipes said, ‘Better if we hauled the flags down, eh, Swain? We might get clean up to the ruddy front door!’ Pellegrine tucked his jaw firmly into the neck of his sweater and concentrated on the shifting patterns beyond the bows where the inlet’s sh...
News of success had come with a laconic message from the Australian major-general ashore. He had stated that despite the large number of casualties when his men had splashed and struggled up the beach, the first Turk to receive a Dominion bayonet had died within half an hour of landing. The firin...
He opened the door and glanced quickly around. It was, as he had hoped, deserted. There was the usual clutter of magazines and newspapers, some well out of date, but The South China Morning Post was fresh, and apparently unread. He sat down and put his drink beside him on a brass-topped oriental ...