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readallthenewberys2012-09-15 11:58 am
justice_turtle) wrote in readallthenewberys2012-09-15 11:58 am
Newbery Medal: The Dark Frigate (Charles Boardman Hawes)
Pfffff, Dark Frigate. Charles Boardman Hawes. Don't I have homework due tomorrow? I'm sure I need to do the laundry. Pity I don't have a cat; I could vacuum it! ;D
* The full title is "THE DARK FRIGATE, Wherein is told the story of Philip Marsham who lived in the time of King Charles and was bred a sailor but came home to England after many hazards by sea and land and fought for the King at Newbury and lost a great inheritance and departed for Barbados by the same ship, by curious chance, in which he had long before adventured with the pirates". Because Charles Boardman Hawes really likes that Moll Flanders title shtick.
* I'm going to try not to spork the man too hard, because he died suddenly before learning he'd won the Newbery Medal. On the other hand, it is Charles Boardman Hawes. ;P
* Looking at the cover-flap, I'm pretty sure I've read an excerpt from this book before. (The name of the ship sounds familiar. Because that's what I remember. XD) I'm also pretty sure it squicked me out with gore. We'll see.
* 25th printing as of 1962. O_O
* I'm going to go into this with the "summarize each chapter" mode activated from the start. It's like reading Pickwick; you have to keep a certain amount of momentum in order not to just bog down in the pay-per-word format. (Sorry, Mr Dickens. You are much better than Mr Hawes. It's just those first few chapters of Pickwick.)
* Philip is nineteen. He usually sails with his father, but fell ill with a fever and thus escaped being lost at sea with his father. The innkeeper lady who was caring for him started treating him badly as soon as she found out his dad was dead and couldn't marry her. (CBH, why so terrible at ladies?) He's almost well when a countryman brings in a big fancy shotgun, shows it round, has no place to put it while he drinks, so hands it to Philip, declaring that it's loaded but not primed so it can't go off. Philip, being a dope, starts messing around and pretending to shoot at the lady's best china. The gun goes off, breaks the china, punches a hole in a butt of sack, and peppers its owner (not, I think, mortally, but YOU NEVER KNOW WITH CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES) around the head and face. :P The inn lady comes after him with a brick, so he runs away, leaving all his money and luggage behind him. Being possessed of antimatter for brains, I swear - he decides, oh, he'll go into the country and live like a king by conning the farmers! WHAT.
* Also, "whoo-bub" for "hubbub". I have not heard this etymology before. It may well be a true one, but why choose to revive that particular word?
* Philip meets a Scottish blacksmith, a fair way from London but nowhere near Scotland. (I guess Mr Hawes took my advice about stealing Stevenson's dialect. He's nowhere near Stevenson-quality good at it, though.) The smith gives him food and lodging, and makes him a good dirk, all for free with no character motivation beyond Philip's "friendly look". He also gets unreasonably angry when Philip offers to pay. This could all be credible! It'd just need actual thought behind it.
* A couple days later, out of money, Philip meets with a grubby but pompous man on the road, who carries a large folio book, insults Philip, and when insulted back, accuses Philip of knowing the countryman Jamie Barwick who had the gun. It seems Jamie knew a discreditable story about this fellow that ends with Grubby's and Jamie's then-mutual boss kicking Grubby out using some of the same insults Philip randomly threw at him; Grubby's convinced Jamie has been telling the tale about town. Also, boss was named Sir John Bristol, and is described as a harsh Anglican knight, while Grubby is a Covenanter / Nonconformist. I think Grubby's supposed to be a little bit unbalanced on the subject of religion. Or maybe just unbalanced altogether.
* Two drunks turn up suddenly, laugh Grubby off the road, and then attempt to con Philip with a badly-rehearsed story of just needing to get to their ship. Philip throws some seafaring lingo back at them because of the Plotty Reasons which plague this man's writing throughout. They wind up talking him into coming with them to, apparently, an ACTUAL SHIP, because Charles Boardman Hawes. On the way, they enact this ridiculous charade: they're carrying a jug of wine together, and every time either one of them wants a drink from it, he will pay the other a tuppence. The same tuppence. O_O They explain they've bought the wine at half-a-crown to sell it for tuppence a drink, to make a profit. When the wine runs out, one of the drunks takes a notion that the other has all the money for it, and actually pokes him in the chest with a dagger before deciding not to kill him. The murderous drunk, one Tom, goes away, and the other drunk, one Martin, explains that they'll meet again at their ship and everything will be fine. (Martin's so dead, ya think?)
* Martin and Philip stop at an inn. They are both broke. Martin knows a girl in the inn who he thinks can get him some help. She's more struck by Philip, it seems, but sends them to the stables till she can get the landlady in a good mood. A coachman in the stables is bragging about his rich master, one Doctor Marsham - this being also Philip's surname. Philip asks him about Dr Marsham, who comes from Little Grimsby, a place Philip has never been to.
* Once they are in the inn, Philip and the girl Nell flirt outrageously, Philip with the goal of getting a look at Dr and Mrs Marsham while they doze by the fire. Dr Marsham is apparently Philip's granddad, but for completely incomprehensible Plotty Reasons phrased as being loyal to his dad's memory(!), Philip doesn't say "hey, I'm your grandson and I'm broke, can you help me out here". Instead, he randomly snogs Nell because he's his father's son and goes back away to sleep in the stable. O_O
* Nell sent a child messenger overnight to Martin's respectable brother, it seems, and the kid on returning fell asleep in the kitchen. The grumpy landlord, finding him the next morning, made him tell everything, then went out with a knife to try and kill Philip and Martin in the hayloft. Philip disarmed him with hay, took him down, and ran away with Martin because Philip is a dope. He also told Nell he'd come back and marry her, because he's a hormonal dope.
* Martin goes to poach on his brother's land, in order to annoy him, and eventually they are caught by Martin's brother's gamekeeper - the countryman Jamie Barwick who had the gun! Because apparently Martin's brother is Sir John Bristol of stern repute. Philip and Barwick fight, and then Sir John shows up and, because CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES IS RANDOM and apparently thinks this is a ~twist~, decides to make both men put their daggers down and fight fairly, unarmed! O_O (O hai, I'm just going to set my gamekeeper to fistfight a poacher for my amusement, because I am Not A Bad Guy Really... whut.)
* Philip starts by winning but then has a momentary blackout from hunger-faintness and loses. Sir John is all "it's okay, I will feed you!" and then beats Martin with his cudgel until Martin is all covered in blood and bruises, and then throws him away on the ground and calls him a coward for crying out. Then Sir John gets distracted, turns round and threatens to have Philip hanged for any crime committed in the area after now, but he's twinkly-eyed? O_O Then he chucks a coin at Philip and looks away distracted again, and Philip chucks the coin back and says he won't take any money that's thrown to him. But Martin picks up the coin, because Martin has some glimmerings of sense - this is apparently a capital sin in a Charles Boardman Hawes book - and they both eat. And apparently Sir John Bristol reminded Philip of his dead father. Also there was a girl Philip's age hanging about in the background, and the only reason for a girl in a Charles Boardman Hawes book (I think) is to be a love interest and thereby cause trouble.
* Finally they get to Bristol and Philip stops to laugh at a man in the stocks, but Martin fusses at him to come away before he gets hanged. Philip protests that since he himself may well sit in the stocks one day, he should... laugh at other people while he can? O_O Martin chases on away, so Philip follows him from curiosity, protesting that "there be no hangings without reason", to which Martin answers "Law, logic, and the Switzers can be hired to fight for any man", which would be a better comeback if I wasn't still tracking the inspiration from Kidnapped in my head. It's a little less obvious this time around; maybe if CBH had survived, he'd one day have written a good book of his own.
* Anyway, so they go off to another harbor way down in Devonshire. For some reason, CBH has it as a plot point that all sailors get helplessly lost on land, which is why Philip started tagging along with Martin in the first place - Martin seemed to know a bit better where he was going.
* Wait, Martin Barwick? It's Jamie Barwick and not Sir John Bristol who's Martin's brother? That makes a bit more SENSE, but it is not at all what I got from the writing. :P
* If "the gentlemen" is the code I know from Rudyard Kipling, Martin is a smuggler, and now in Bideford in Devonshire they are talking to an old lady who supplies "the gentlemen" with money. She tells them what ships are in port, and Martin chooses out the Rose of Devon, a new ship from Plymouth that has never been in Bideford before and now goes to Newfoundland for cod. Why on earth a smuggler would be interested in the cod trade, I've no idea, but the old lady insists it would be a good idea. Philip asks questions of Martin in the dark after they go to bed, and Martin speaks of "the gentlemen" as fine honest men, but of "the Old One" who has left without them - to whose ship Martin was originally bound - Martin says the Old One is Tom Jordan, who nearly stabbed him before. :P
* The next morning, on their way out the door, the old lady gets Philip alone for a second and warns him to leave Martin. Philip ignores him. As they head toward the docks, they see a mob harrying someone, and Philip insists on joining the "fun". It turns out to be old Grubby the religious book-carrier who's the mob's target; then Martin runs away, and Philip follows him. Philip sees a mysterious face in a window watching Martin run away; the face's owner takes note of Philip as well.
* They speak to the ship's captain in the way the old lady told them. The captain mocks Martin (who is fat), telling him he's too fat for a sailor but is obviously a good cook. Philip picks up on the captain's amusement at his own joke and decides he likes the man, because PHILIP IS A DOPE. So is Charles Boardman Hawes, sorry. ;-) Anyway, they sign on to the ship, and Philip gets a higher pay grade than Martin. Martin grumps. Philip begins to befriend a boy his own age named Will Canty, decreed by the author "a likable fellow, and one whom a man could trust". Show, don't tell, Mr Hawes. :P
* As soon as the Rose of Devon is well away from the dock, the beadle and constable come running along telling them to come back, but the captain doesn't want to miss the tide, so they don't. And the chapter ends with a lot of seafaring lingo (he really does get his details right; I don't write books, reason one, because I am terrified of being this man - over-researched and under-skilled) and a Foreboding of Ominousness about the ship.
* After a week at sea, a footrope breaks and the boatswain... WAIT, WHAT? I just said you got your details right, old man! Stop this! :P For the record, the boatswain is in charge of affairs on deck: the ship's stores, the lifeboats, the scrubbing and repainting, the gun-crews if there are any. HE DOES NOT GO ALOFT. But in this book, the boatswain has just fallen overboard from aloft! :P And Philip gets made boatswain, and then baits Martin (who's cranky at being passed over) by telling him the captain praised him as "a fine fellow but overbold". So Martin gets in a scuffle with the ship's mate and winds up being called out as the ship's liar (which is apparently... a thing), and doesn't admit he was fooled and Philip is the one who lied, BECAUSE THIS IS A CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES BOOK and we don't need any of your steenkin' reasons! ;P
* Will Canty, who seems to be the Voice of Doom in this particular book, warns Philip against pushing Martin too far. End chapter.
* A storm comes. Philip gets the extra sails and ropes ready in case anything carries away. Then he goes aloft, because Charles Boardman Hawes does not understand shipboard customs - and just as Philip is starting to help furl in a worn foresail, it splits and nearly knocks him off the yardarm. The storm is bad, and the captain has them strike all sail... which is actually the right thing to do in a ship of the age and make of the Rose of Devon, but Charles Boardman Hawes DOES NOT KNOW THAT because the Mayflower II hasn't yet been built and sailed! Till then, modern people didn't know that you could (essentially) heave-to stern-to-wind in a ship with such a high poop and not get swamped. The proper thing to do that CBH should have known about is to leave one sail, at full reef, in such a way that you're trying to sail steadily into the wind; this holds you still. It is called heaving-to.
* Anyway, the storm goes down and then kicks up again, and an old man says they should check the guns aren't going to burst their lashings-down with all the pitching and rolling - which, I'll warrant you, guarantees it'll happen. They then pass another ship in the storm, which begs them for food and water but they obviously can't put out a boat, and they get separated in the continuing storm. After which, a giant wave breaks over the ship and washes Martin overboard; Philip grabs a random loose rope and goes after him. They both get back aboard, but the ship is stove in and several things, including the lifeboat and spare anchor, washed away. Will Canty says the captain has ordered the mizzenmast cut down "the better to keep us before the wind", WHAT EVEN, you do not cut a mast away until it is broken and trying to carry away of itself! That's like throwing an engine overboard! :P But they patch the side of the ship and survive the storm, and the chapter ends with Martin grumpily sorta-thanking Philip for saving his life.
* They meet another ship that has lost two of her masts and claims to be sinking, and take her crew on board. One of them is Tom Jordan, "the Old One" (a name I have only previously seen given to witches and gods O_O). Martin yells out to him, but Tom pretends not to recognize Martin. The sailors are stupidly incompetent and get the other ship's boat stove in, despite Tom killing one of them with an oar to try to get their attention(?); the boat sinks, seven men are left on the other leaky ship, and Tom instructs them to build a raft and stay afloat till morning, when the Rose of Devon will take them on board (it being too late to try any handy tricks with ziplines tonight). For some reason the seven men do not actually make a raft; instead they sink and die with their ship around 10pm. :P I can't even.
* Tom claims his ship was seven weeks out from Virginia, which is either not true or CBH's bad hand with time has confused me again. The Rose of Devon's captain mistrusts him, but treats him and his men well that night. In the forecastle, several men including Martin and Philip are talking; the cook brings news of Tom's claim that they were seven weeks from Virginia, and Martin busts out laughing, till one of Tom's men kicks his chair over and claims "it was done casually", then threatens him if he doesn't shut his mouth. Then later, Tom sneaks out of the captain's cabin which he is sharing, and has a long talk with Martin that says nothing specific. Mr Hawes is very good at saying nothing specific.
* Time for the mutiny. I've read these few chapters before, in excerpt, but if I hadn't, CBH's foreshadowing / setup is still pretty transparent. He actually italicized the line "and of the eleven rescued men [that is, Tom's men] not one was below [decks]".
* Yup, it's as gory as I remembered, with throat-cutting and "the feel of a knife edge dragging over bone" and all. Philip is below decks when it happens, doing something with the ship's carpenter, so he comes topside to a fait accompli. He can join the pirates or die, so - being the hero and not allowed to die - he joins the pirates but says "I call upon all of you to bear witness I was forced". *eyerolling forever* He and Will Canty are foreshadowed to run away or counter-mutiny together later on; Tom notices this, because HE NOTICES EVERYTHING, and frowns. A poetical piece of writing explains how the ship still has a Dark Ominous Foreshadowing over her, and in the last words of the chapter, the body of the ship's former captain "lay forgotten in the steerage room".
* Tom makes the cook prepare a feast for everyone on board. CBH declares this is a sign that "matters are in a sad way on a ship when the master feasts the men", but given my knowledge of hardtack and the usual treatment of men before the mast versus those after it, I will just be pleased to kick his opinions out of the way.
* Who on earth is King Adoni-bezek? *googles* Ah. In the Bible, he had cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy other kings and made them pick up scraps under his table to eat, and the Israelites did likewise unto him; CBH brings him up to say that the cabin-boy scrounges scraps under the table similarly when this feast is over. WHY, I don't know! ;P
* A hook-nosed man called Jacob, whose accent makes his name "Yacob", is a trusted crony of Tom the Old One. When Tom proposes a toast "to the King", perplexing the new pirates, Jacob replies, "The King and his ships be damned!" which is the proper response here. Will Canty is the only one who does not drink; he claims his cup was empty, but kind of ruins that by adding "I am no prating Puritan who wishes ill to the King" - I think, just in order to demonstrate that he is Brave and Sassy and will toss completely idiotic insults around when he is outnumbered. There is a quick bit of a note that Old Tom will not forget but isn't going to murder Will right now - then a long discussion of where they shall take the ship, which ends when Jacob speaks strongly in favor of the Spanish Main. Then a ship is sighted, and they get ready to go and board her; Old Tom and his mate discuss Canty's insolence, but Jacob interjects that "it proves nothing that a man will not drink damnation to a king", although frankly it proves EVERYTHING in that day and age. :P
* Philip and Will Canty throw an unidentified bundle overboard while everyone else is paying attention to the ship they want to capture. CBH is just not very good at that sort of mysterious thing that makes you go *headslap* once you find out what was being prepared for. Anyway, then there is a sea-battle - it turns out the other ship is a pirate too - and nothing really happens, except that Philip fights a knife-duel in the standing rigging while the other ship is trying to grapple them without (FOR SOME REASON) any actual grapnels, and is Noted by Tom the Old One. Again.
* Then Philip is called into council with the master, mate, and boatswain - who is not him - apparently to be threatened at over whatever-it-was that got thrown overboard, which Tom has found out about and he isn't happy. This is not how to write suspense, Mr Hawes! It's just confusing! :P
* OH HAHAHA. I get it now! Philip and Will threw the navigational instruments overboard! ...so Jacob just makes new ones. Yadda yadda boring. And now Old Tom is planning to set a trap for whoever done it. Then there is a chapter of wee incidents that CBH says flat-out are all backstory for things that will happen later. Among these incidents are, that the cook gets drunk and makes a dish of salt fish with the salt left in, and Old Tom makes him eat it all without water and then sit in the stocks on deck without water overnight; and then Philip and Will start making plans in the dark, and even after they remember the cook is there and mock at him, they don't move somewhere else, just keep talking in coded phrases. BECAUSE EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK IS A DOPE. And of course the cook tells Old Tom what he can, which isn't much but does prove Philip and Will are in cahoots over something. Old Tom wants to catch them in their own net, though, so he weaves traps.
* They replace their old mizzenmast with one out of a wrecked ship they find in a Caribbean lagoon, and then go to attack an unnamed town and ransack it for gold and jewels. By arrangement, Old Tom has Will Canty left as one of three guards on the ship while Philip marches with the gang, and secretly leaves Jacob to watch Will. Jacob therefore sees Will get himself sent up a hill as a lookout, and also sees Will eventually wave his shirt as a signal for half an hour, without evident result. THIS IS NOT INTERESTING without some kind of explanation behind it, Charles Boardman Hawes! You give us part of the plan and then show how it will get tangled with the other people's plan, that's how you make it interesting. And then you pull a secret but logically connected part of the plan out from up your sleeve to solve the mess.
* The attack on the town fails. When the pirates get back to their ship, they find Will Canty and one other boy gone, only the cook remaining, since he would have nothing to do with their plan. This was not according to Old Tom's plan, and he grumps at Jacob about it - in Philip's hearing. o_O
* There is cranky mutiny aboard the ship, and far too much talk for too little sense. On the other hand, I'm 70% of the way through already, and not more than halfway impatient; Charles Boardman Hawes did a much better job this time around than the last time, although I'm also expecting less of him. ;-)
* Old Tom cons the people of the town into inviting him and some of his men to dine with them, by claiming to have been attacked by the same pirates who just attacked the town last night. He's got nerve, anyway. In the meantime, Jacob and Philip are left as guards, and Jacob tells Philip to go downstairs and eat dinner, and not to hurry. Twice, with emphasis. It is dark in the dining room with the sun setting, but a mirror in front of Philip shows him the doorway behind him. So when somebody in a hat pops their head over the "gallery rail" (I don't know what this is), Philip promptly slides down into the darkest corner of the cabin and hides there. ...and then stands up so he can still see? Dumb of him. You never know who's going to strike a match.
* And indeed, one of the three men in fancy hats strikes flint and tinder, so Philip asks where they came from and why. They are strangers to him, Englishmen by their voices, and why on earth they snuck aboard the Rose of Devon we do not find out yet. But the man with flint and tinder says he will know Philip again.
* Jacob leaves. Now we find out why his brown hook-nosed face was suddenly compared to that of a rat, earlier in the chapter; he's now compared to a rat who leaves a sinking ship. NOT CUTE, MR HAWES.
* Anyway, Jacob has run away because the ship is going to be boarded - I assume the townspeople pretended to be dumb and accept the pirates'... invitation to invite them for dinner?... while actually taking the opportunity to get them off their ship so as to capture them easily? If this is true, Mr Hawes is finally showing the rudiments of a plot. :D Tentatively good for you, Mr Hawes.
* The pirates come back and the ship is running away from the following townspeople's boats, without getting boarded. WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR, SIR. Anyway, Philip tells Old Tom about Jacob leaving - Philip doesn't know the details because he was in the cabin at the time - and also about the three Englishmen who came on board. Old Tom approves, but because this is a Charles Boardman Hawes book (sorry, I'm really not fond of this guy), he can't leave it at that, but does a major recap of his history with Philip, mentioning Grubby-with-the-Book (as someone who is good to bait, and that Jacob disliked baiting him) and Martin (whose "wits are but a slubbering matter" - oh CBH and your mental ableism. You're a jerk. :P) and then orders Philip to go for'ard and not come abaft the mainmast till wanted.
* Oh, and the pirates have a prisoner, who they are now going to torture in the after cabin, so that makes a little more sense; Old Tom was busy smarming up to Philip there so as to use the torture-times as a test of loyalty on the side. ...and once he figures out he can't take on the entire ship, Philip's first thought is to jump overboard and swim to shore himself? O_O Philip, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU. Anyway, the ship's carpenter talks him out of that, and explains what happened in the town - which is that the Spanish townspeople had Will Canty there to point out Old Tom when he should arrive, so as to kill him first, but that the carpenter recognized Will's voice and the pirates captured him. Which is a good bit of plotting but VERY UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS, sir, that the townspeople have no cleverness of their own! (Because you can bet that Will came up with the whole plan for them. Any takers? *headshake*)
* Of course the pirates don't kill Will straight out. Old Tom has him shackled to the foot of the mizzenmast and brags about being a merciful man, in the best pirate style. Philip was trying to go rescue him, but the carpenter - who rather likes him - grabbed him and was too strong for him, and Philip didn't care to stab him to get away. I don't think much of Philip as a person, but I'm not going to nitpick the carpenter being stronger than him, because I've known some of those skinny wiry old men of the carpenter's physical type, and they tend to be incredibly strong for their skinniness.
* Either the carpenter hasn't got a name or it's only been used once and I haven't picked it up.
* So the next day, having got clean away from the townspeople, they anchor in a little bay and the carpenter builds a coffin for Will Canty. I think Old Tom is planning to bury Will alive. The carpenter is stated to have no moral values beyond saving his own skin; it's arguable whether he's acting in character or as a plot device, these last few chapters. I think it's hard to tell, just because he seems to have no character to act in. (If you're going to use someone as a major supporting character, CBH, give him a personality with opinions of his own. And a name. Names are good.)
* Old Tom orders Philip to help row Will and the coffin to the shore; he seems to be trying to push Philip's loyalty just as far as he can, although either it's fairly well handled or Mr Hawes has now numbed my brain to the point that his plot-logic makes sense. I think it is partly that he's becoming a slightly better writer, though. (And partly ow my brain. *g*) Old Tom does, at least, also take as many other men as the boat will carry - having been in rowboats, I'm a bit suspicious of its holding that many men, actually, but you can't research everything. ;-)
* Will Canty tries to jump overside, actually landing across the gunwale, and somehow DOES NOT TURN THE BOAT TURTLE nor even make her ship water. Yup, my brain is well and truly numbed at this point. ;-) A random sailor hits him across the chin with his gun, getting in the way of Old Tom trying to haul him back inboard; Canty sinks without a trace, CBH asserting he's now dead and that that's the best he could hope for o_O, and Old Tom kills the guy who got in his way by... throwing the coffin at him? The coffin bounces overboard and floats away, the boat STILL does not turn turtle - oh, the guy isn't dead, but Old Tom forces him to run away and maroon himself or be killed, so he does that. But what a stable boat! O_O
* Martin has an untold nightmare that night. WHATEVER. I've no interest in this book anymore. :P I'm at about 80% of the way through, so I may as well finish, but - *headshake* If you have VERY interesting characters, I may forgive a little sloppiness with boats. If you're good at your boats, I'll forgive quite a bit of lazy characterization. But if you're no good with either, why am I reading you? ;-)
* ...whut. This is a very complex sentence; I cannot puzzle it out. "Of all this he [Philip] thought at length, and fearing his own conscience more than all the familiars of the Inquisition, in which he was singularly heartened by remembering the stout old knight in the scarlet cloak [Sir John Bristol], he contrived a plan and bode his time." I haven't the faintest notion what Sir John Bristol is doing in that sentence, except to foreshadow me over the head with a clue-by-four that Philip will wind up meeting him again. Which I already knew, I think.
* So Philip runs away through the trackless jungle without getting lost, despite that he can't navigate in England with an open road before him... :P No more interest at all. A storm happens. Philip is bitten by mosquitoes till he can't see. He comes again to the seashore - okay, he DID get lost? - and sees the Rose of Devon, but doesn't go back aboard her. Friendly natives turn up and cure him of his mosquito bites, and give him food and native bug repellent. (I am just cranky enough to deduce that these poor nameless natives are of the tribe of Plot. ;P) (...you know, I think if I didn't mind snarking at a book without apologizing, I might be a more interesting liveblogger. *g*)
* Philip sees a ship at anchor, tries to figure out whose it is, can't, swims to it anyway - in his underwear, or that's what I take from "removed the greater part of his clothing" - and climbs up the carved sterncastle by way of the rudder. He finds out they are Englishmen on board the ship, but he's gone and sat on a windowsill with one foot inside in order to rest, and an English gentleman who had his writing-desk in a hidden corner by the window (out of the light and without a candle, of course, BECAUSE OF PLOT) grabs Philip by the ankle. Philip doesn't want to fall right down into the water, so he stays put, and the gentleman - who thinks this is all very funny, which it kind of is - has the ship's boy call the captain and they haul Philip inboard.
* Philip begs them to take him home to England. The jolly gentleman makes a random racist joke about how Philip's face has swelled up again (he ran out of native bug-repellent the day before) "till it is as thick-lipped as a Guinea slave's"; the captain, being more Srs Bsnss and not minded to make jokes, cross-examines Philip, who mentions that a ship which may be the Rose of Devon (of course it is) is lying-to on the other side of the point from this harbor. Philip tells when the Rose sailed, who was her lawful master, and other things... I don't know how the captain thinks all this will prove the most important bit of Philip's story, which is, that he didn't turn to piracy wholeheartedly as the other captured sailors (except Will Canty) did. But the captain is the guy with flint and tinder from before, who said he would know Philip again, and he does.
* Okay, the captain is a sensible man, and locks Philip up... in the gun room? Why? (And what on earth is a gun room? O_O I've heard of a gun deck.) Anyway, Philip is locked up all during the battle, and Captain Winterton here with his men captures the Rose of Devon and her pirates. Old Tom is taken alive, and gets this massive paragraph-long encomium from the author on how he could have been a great admiral if... he had merely gone to sea in the time of other kings than James and Charles! I AM HEADDESKING FOREVER, SIR. Old Tom is a bad man, and would not have been a good one if he hadn't been *airquotes* forced into piracy by the horrible state of the British navy at the time when he started sailing. He likes killing people.
* I am sad to say it, Mr Hawes, but I think it is well that you died before you could inflict any more books on the world, even though you were getting better at your writing. :-(
* So then the pirates have their trial, and all but Old Tom (and of course Philip, who doesn't really count I guess) are "revealed as cowards to the marrow of their bones"... CRIMINALS ARE A SUPERSTITIOUS AND COWARDLY LOT, eh Batman? ;P The officers of the law can't find anyone to swear to the identity of any of the pirates as someone who definitely pirated at them, though; and they drag into court the old lady that supplied the "gentlemen" with money, who is going to be hanged next week (they hang women? I've never heard of this happening *must check*), and tell her to turn King's Evidence, but she swears she's never seen any of them before. CBH praises her as noble for this, and condemns Joe Kirk - the guy who ran away with Will Canty - as "a villain of mean spirit" who loses all his honor by IDing the pirates for the court. STOP BEING FULL OF FAIL, MR HAWES.
* And then the pirates are condemned, and Philip is asked for his story because - although everyone has assumed he's one of the pirates so far, because there's no proof that he wasn't spying out Captain Winterton's ship for them to attack - he did make that claim. Also he's cute; the audience are muttering about how "so likely a lad" shouldn't be hanged. ;P So Philip tells his story... oh Hawes. Oh Mr Weirdman Hawes. Philip tells his own story, but when they ask him about anything involving other pirates and not him, he makes a noble face and states that every man must tell his own story, and they can hang him if they want but "he must leave the others to answer those questions for themselves".
* (Be it known here that I have never, ever understood what constitutes "tattling" or why you supposedly shouldn't do it. In my opinion, there's a lot to be said both for standing by your comrades - especially if you got them into a scrape, or were as deep in it as them - and for not perjuring yourself in the dock. But if you were taken by a band of pirates and forced to go along with them, then let them all go hang and save your own neck! If you can do it truthfully. But I'm assuming here that Philip's nobleness in not telling tales is what's going to save him, because everyone in this book lives inside the head of Charles Boardman Hawes, where the rules are different. ;P)
* Hawes makes a big old excuse for how, suuuuure, people have a duty to help uphold the law, but Philip "answered according to his conscience" and so he was all better and more awesomer than the "traitor" who told about the pirates. And then Old Tom is so impressed by Philip's noble-face answer that he swears Philip was forced to go along with them and ought to be freed, and then Captain Winterton conveniently remembers how Other Pirate Boatswain tried to strangle Philip the first night they were all locked up together, and had to be hit on the head. So yadda yadda, Philip is telling the truth and he is a Noble Awesome Boy, I don't care anymore. Philip is a dope! He had chances to leave Martin's company before ever joining the Rose, to get away or to get killed nobly, etc etc etc. He is a dope and I don't like him.
* So Philip is freed, and CBH makes a long speech about how he isn't going to tie up all the loose ends he has left, whatever they are. But he does send Philip back to the inn where he snogged Nell, and finds that she has married the countryman Jamie Barwick who had the gun - not because she had the common sense to know Philip was a dope and waiting to marry him if he ever came back was a loser's proposition, but because she's an overbold low-class serving-wench with bare arms. GO PUT YOUR HEAD IN THE WATER-BUTT, CBH, till you get some common sense yourself! :P
* So Philip goes and demands to see Sir John Bristol, and because Sir John is one of those upperclass knights (who I am convinced are a complete fantasy of writers) who likes to have a man look him in the eye and speak plainly to the border of rudeness... he offers Philip a place as a man-at-arms, then when he finds out Philip's NAME, takes him instead as an honoured guest for the memory of his grandfather, Dr Marsham, who died last year along with Mrs Dr Marsham.
* And the last chapter tells in quick overview how the years pass, how Philip fights against the Roundheads (but respects them, because CBH never met a clue-by-four he didn't like) and becomes a captain, how Sir John is killed in battle, how Philip's inheritance from his granddad is lost in the war, and how Philip finally decides to leave England and runs across the Rose of Devon sitting in harbor. He asks the captain where she's going, and being STILL A DOPE, PHILIP MARSHAM, sounds off about how he hears the colonies are all just like Puritan England now (so he doesn't want to go there) and "as many psalms are whined in Boston as in all the conventicles of London". :P Dope.
* But the new captain, whose name is Hosmer, is okay with that and just laughs at him for not checking the politics of those who would hear him, first, and says they're going to Barbados. So Philip does. End story.
Blaaaaaaaaaah. Done. THAT WAS A LOT OF BOOK.
* The full title is "THE DARK FRIGATE, Wherein is told the story of Philip Marsham who lived in the time of King Charles and was bred a sailor but came home to England after many hazards by sea and land and fought for the King at Newbury and lost a great inheritance and departed for Barbados by the same ship, by curious chance, in which he had long before adventured with the pirates". Because Charles Boardman Hawes really likes that Moll Flanders title shtick.
* I'm going to try not to spork the man too hard, because he died suddenly before learning he'd won the Newbery Medal. On the other hand, it is Charles Boardman Hawes. ;P
* Looking at the cover-flap, I'm pretty sure I've read an excerpt from this book before. (The name of the ship sounds familiar. Because that's what I remember. XD) I'm also pretty sure it squicked me out with gore. We'll see.
* 25th printing as of 1962. O_O
* I'm going to go into this with the "summarize each chapter" mode activated from the start. It's like reading Pickwick; you have to keep a certain amount of momentum in order not to just bog down in the pay-per-word format. (Sorry, Mr Dickens. You are much better than Mr Hawes. It's just those first few chapters of Pickwick.)
* Philip is nineteen. He usually sails with his father, but fell ill with a fever and thus escaped being lost at sea with his father. The innkeeper lady who was caring for him started treating him badly as soon as she found out his dad was dead and couldn't marry her. (CBH, why so terrible at ladies?) He's almost well when a countryman brings in a big fancy shotgun, shows it round, has no place to put it while he drinks, so hands it to Philip, declaring that it's loaded but not primed so it can't go off. Philip, being a dope, starts messing around and pretending to shoot at the lady's best china. The gun goes off, breaks the china, punches a hole in a butt of sack, and peppers its owner (not, I think, mortally, but YOU NEVER KNOW WITH CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES) around the head and face. :P The inn lady comes after him with a brick, so he runs away, leaving all his money and luggage behind him. Being possessed of antimatter for brains, I swear - he decides, oh, he'll go into the country and live like a king by conning the farmers! WHAT.
* Also, "whoo-bub" for "hubbub". I have not heard this etymology before. It may well be a true one, but why choose to revive that particular word?
* Philip meets a Scottish blacksmith, a fair way from London but nowhere near Scotland. (I guess Mr Hawes took my advice about stealing Stevenson's dialect. He's nowhere near Stevenson-quality good at it, though.) The smith gives him food and lodging, and makes him a good dirk, all for free with no character motivation beyond Philip's "friendly look". He also gets unreasonably angry when Philip offers to pay. This could all be credible! It'd just need actual thought behind it.
* A couple days later, out of money, Philip meets with a grubby but pompous man on the road, who carries a large folio book, insults Philip, and when insulted back, accuses Philip of knowing the countryman Jamie Barwick who had the gun. It seems Jamie knew a discreditable story about this fellow that ends with Grubby's and Jamie's then-mutual boss kicking Grubby out using some of the same insults Philip randomly threw at him; Grubby's convinced Jamie has been telling the tale about town. Also, boss was named Sir John Bristol, and is described as a harsh Anglican knight, while Grubby is a Covenanter / Nonconformist. I think Grubby's supposed to be a little bit unbalanced on the subject of religion. Or maybe just unbalanced altogether.
* Two drunks turn up suddenly, laugh Grubby off the road, and then attempt to con Philip with a badly-rehearsed story of just needing to get to their ship. Philip throws some seafaring lingo back at them because of the Plotty Reasons which plague this man's writing throughout. They wind up talking him into coming with them to, apparently, an ACTUAL SHIP, because Charles Boardman Hawes. On the way, they enact this ridiculous charade: they're carrying a jug of wine together, and every time either one of them wants a drink from it, he will pay the other a tuppence. The same tuppence. O_O They explain they've bought the wine at half-a-crown to sell it for tuppence a drink, to make a profit. When the wine runs out, one of the drunks takes a notion that the other has all the money for it, and actually pokes him in the chest with a dagger before deciding not to kill him. The murderous drunk, one Tom, goes away, and the other drunk, one Martin, explains that they'll meet again at their ship and everything will be fine. (Martin's so dead, ya think?)
* Martin and Philip stop at an inn. They are both broke. Martin knows a girl in the inn who he thinks can get him some help. She's more struck by Philip, it seems, but sends them to the stables till she can get the landlady in a good mood. A coachman in the stables is bragging about his rich master, one Doctor Marsham - this being also Philip's surname. Philip asks him about Dr Marsham, who comes from Little Grimsby, a place Philip has never been to.
* Once they are in the inn, Philip and the girl Nell flirt outrageously, Philip with the goal of getting a look at Dr and Mrs Marsham while they doze by the fire. Dr Marsham is apparently Philip's granddad, but for completely incomprehensible Plotty Reasons phrased as being loyal to his dad's memory(!), Philip doesn't say "hey, I'm your grandson and I'm broke, can you help me out here". Instead, he randomly snogs Nell because he's his father's son and goes back away to sleep in the stable. O_O
* Nell sent a child messenger overnight to Martin's respectable brother, it seems, and the kid on returning fell asleep in the kitchen. The grumpy landlord, finding him the next morning, made him tell everything, then went out with a knife to try and kill Philip and Martin in the hayloft. Philip disarmed him with hay, took him down, and ran away with Martin because Philip is a dope. He also told Nell he'd come back and marry her, because he's a hormonal dope.
* Martin goes to poach on his brother's land, in order to annoy him, and eventually they are caught by Martin's brother's gamekeeper - the countryman Jamie Barwick who had the gun! Because apparently Martin's brother is Sir John Bristol of stern repute. Philip and Barwick fight, and then Sir John shows up and, because CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES IS RANDOM and apparently thinks this is a ~twist~, decides to make both men put their daggers down and fight fairly, unarmed! O_O (O hai, I'm just going to set my gamekeeper to fistfight a poacher for my amusement, because I am Not A Bad Guy Really... whut.)
* Philip starts by winning but then has a momentary blackout from hunger-faintness and loses. Sir John is all "it's okay, I will feed you!" and then beats Martin with his cudgel until Martin is all covered in blood and bruises, and then throws him away on the ground and calls him a coward for crying out. Then Sir John gets distracted, turns round and threatens to have Philip hanged for any crime committed in the area after now, but he's twinkly-eyed? O_O Then he chucks a coin at Philip and looks away distracted again, and Philip chucks the coin back and says he won't take any money that's thrown to him. But Martin picks up the coin, because Martin has some glimmerings of sense - this is apparently a capital sin in a Charles Boardman Hawes book - and they both eat. And apparently Sir John Bristol reminded Philip of his dead father. Also there was a girl Philip's age hanging about in the background, and the only reason for a girl in a Charles Boardman Hawes book (I think) is to be a love interest and thereby cause trouble.
* Finally they get to Bristol and Philip stops to laugh at a man in the stocks, but Martin fusses at him to come away before he gets hanged. Philip protests that since he himself may well sit in the stocks one day, he should... laugh at other people while he can? O_O Martin chases on away, so Philip follows him from curiosity, protesting that "there be no hangings without reason", to which Martin answers "Law, logic, and the Switzers can be hired to fight for any man", which would be a better comeback if I wasn't still tracking the inspiration from Kidnapped in my head. It's a little less obvious this time around; maybe if CBH had survived, he'd one day have written a good book of his own.
* Anyway, so they go off to another harbor way down in Devonshire. For some reason, CBH has it as a plot point that all sailors get helplessly lost on land, which is why Philip started tagging along with Martin in the first place - Martin seemed to know a bit better where he was going.
* Wait, Martin Barwick? It's Jamie Barwick and not Sir John Bristol who's Martin's brother? That makes a bit more SENSE, but it is not at all what I got from the writing. :P
* If "the gentlemen" is the code I know from Rudyard Kipling, Martin is a smuggler, and now in Bideford in Devonshire they are talking to an old lady who supplies "the gentlemen" with money. She tells them what ships are in port, and Martin chooses out the Rose of Devon, a new ship from Plymouth that has never been in Bideford before and now goes to Newfoundland for cod. Why on earth a smuggler would be interested in the cod trade, I've no idea, but the old lady insists it would be a good idea. Philip asks questions of Martin in the dark after they go to bed, and Martin speaks of "the gentlemen" as fine honest men, but of "the Old One" who has left without them - to whose ship Martin was originally bound - Martin says the Old One is Tom Jordan, who nearly stabbed him before. :P
* The next morning, on their way out the door, the old lady gets Philip alone for a second and warns him to leave Martin. Philip ignores him. As they head toward the docks, they see a mob harrying someone, and Philip insists on joining the "fun". It turns out to be old Grubby the religious book-carrier who's the mob's target; then Martin runs away, and Philip follows him. Philip sees a mysterious face in a window watching Martin run away; the face's owner takes note of Philip as well.
* They speak to the ship's captain in the way the old lady told them. The captain mocks Martin (who is fat), telling him he's too fat for a sailor but is obviously a good cook. Philip picks up on the captain's amusement at his own joke and decides he likes the man, because PHILIP IS A DOPE. So is Charles Boardman Hawes, sorry. ;-) Anyway, they sign on to the ship, and Philip gets a higher pay grade than Martin. Martin grumps. Philip begins to befriend a boy his own age named Will Canty, decreed by the author "a likable fellow, and one whom a man could trust". Show, don't tell, Mr Hawes. :P
* As soon as the Rose of Devon is well away from the dock, the beadle and constable come running along telling them to come back, but the captain doesn't want to miss the tide, so they don't. And the chapter ends with a lot of seafaring lingo (he really does get his details right; I don't write books, reason one, because I am terrified of being this man - over-researched and under-skilled) and a Foreboding of Ominousness about the ship.
* After a week at sea, a footrope breaks and the boatswain... WAIT, WHAT? I just said you got your details right, old man! Stop this! :P For the record, the boatswain is in charge of affairs on deck: the ship's stores, the lifeboats, the scrubbing and repainting, the gun-crews if there are any. HE DOES NOT GO ALOFT. But in this book, the boatswain has just fallen overboard from aloft! :P And Philip gets made boatswain, and then baits Martin (who's cranky at being passed over) by telling him the captain praised him as "a fine fellow but overbold". So Martin gets in a scuffle with the ship's mate and winds up being called out as the ship's liar (which is apparently... a thing), and doesn't admit he was fooled and Philip is the one who lied, BECAUSE THIS IS A CHARLES BOARDMAN HAWES BOOK and we don't need any of your steenkin' reasons! ;P
* Will Canty, who seems to be the Voice of Doom in this particular book, warns Philip against pushing Martin too far. End chapter.
* A storm comes. Philip gets the extra sails and ropes ready in case anything carries away. Then he goes aloft, because Charles Boardman Hawes does not understand shipboard customs - and just as Philip is starting to help furl in a worn foresail, it splits and nearly knocks him off the yardarm. The storm is bad, and the captain has them strike all sail... which is actually the right thing to do in a ship of the age and make of the Rose of Devon, but Charles Boardman Hawes DOES NOT KNOW THAT because the Mayflower II hasn't yet been built and sailed! Till then, modern people didn't know that you could (essentially) heave-to stern-to-wind in a ship with such a high poop and not get swamped. The proper thing to do that CBH should have known about is to leave one sail, at full reef, in such a way that you're trying to sail steadily into the wind; this holds you still. It is called heaving-to.
* Anyway, the storm goes down and then kicks up again, and an old man says they should check the guns aren't going to burst their lashings-down with all the pitching and rolling - which, I'll warrant you, guarantees it'll happen. They then pass another ship in the storm, which begs them for food and water but they obviously can't put out a boat, and they get separated in the continuing storm. After which, a giant wave breaks over the ship and washes Martin overboard; Philip grabs a random loose rope and goes after him. They both get back aboard, but the ship is stove in and several things, including the lifeboat and spare anchor, washed away. Will Canty says the captain has ordered the mizzenmast cut down "the better to keep us before the wind", WHAT EVEN, you do not cut a mast away until it is broken and trying to carry away of itself! That's like throwing an engine overboard! :P But they patch the side of the ship and survive the storm, and the chapter ends with Martin grumpily sorta-thanking Philip for saving his life.
* They meet another ship that has lost two of her masts and claims to be sinking, and take her crew on board. One of them is Tom Jordan, "the Old One" (a name I have only previously seen given to witches and gods O_O). Martin yells out to him, but Tom pretends not to recognize Martin. The sailors are stupidly incompetent and get the other ship's boat stove in, despite Tom killing one of them with an oar to try to get their attention(?); the boat sinks, seven men are left on the other leaky ship, and Tom instructs them to build a raft and stay afloat till morning, when the Rose of Devon will take them on board (it being too late to try any handy tricks with ziplines tonight). For some reason the seven men do not actually make a raft; instead they sink and die with their ship around 10pm. :P I can't even.
* Tom claims his ship was seven weeks out from Virginia, which is either not true or CBH's bad hand with time has confused me again. The Rose of Devon's captain mistrusts him, but treats him and his men well that night. In the forecastle, several men including Martin and Philip are talking; the cook brings news of Tom's claim that they were seven weeks from Virginia, and Martin busts out laughing, till one of Tom's men kicks his chair over and claims "it was done casually", then threatens him if he doesn't shut his mouth. Then later, Tom sneaks out of the captain's cabin which he is sharing, and has a long talk with Martin that says nothing specific. Mr Hawes is very good at saying nothing specific.
* Time for the mutiny. I've read these few chapters before, in excerpt, but if I hadn't, CBH's foreshadowing / setup is still pretty transparent. He actually italicized the line "and of the eleven rescued men [that is, Tom's men] not one was below [decks]".
* Yup, it's as gory as I remembered, with throat-cutting and "the feel of a knife edge dragging over bone" and all. Philip is below decks when it happens, doing something with the ship's carpenter, so he comes topside to a fait accompli. He can join the pirates or die, so - being the hero and not allowed to die - he joins the pirates but says "I call upon all of you to bear witness I was forced". *eyerolling forever* He and Will Canty are foreshadowed to run away or counter-mutiny together later on; Tom notices this, because HE NOTICES EVERYTHING, and frowns. A poetical piece of writing explains how the ship still has a Dark Ominous Foreshadowing over her, and in the last words of the chapter, the body of the ship's former captain "lay forgotten in the steerage room".
* Tom makes the cook prepare a feast for everyone on board. CBH declares this is a sign that "matters are in a sad way on a ship when the master feasts the men", but given my knowledge of hardtack and the usual treatment of men before the mast versus those after it, I will just be pleased to kick his opinions out of the way.
* Who on earth is King Adoni-bezek? *googles* Ah. In the Bible, he had cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy other kings and made them pick up scraps under his table to eat, and the Israelites did likewise unto him; CBH brings him up to say that the cabin-boy scrounges scraps under the table similarly when this feast is over. WHY, I don't know! ;P
* A hook-nosed man called Jacob, whose accent makes his name "Yacob", is a trusted crony of Tom the Old One. When Tom proposes a toast "to the King", perplexing the new pirates, Jacob replies, "The King and his ships be damned!" which is the proper response here. Will Canty is the only one who does not drink; he claims his cup was empty, but kind of ruins that by adding "I am no prating Puritan who wishes ill to the King" - I think, just in order to demonstrate that he is Brave and Sassy and will toss completely idiotic insults around when he is outnumbered. There is a quick bit of a note that Old Tom will not forget but isn't going to murder Will right now - then a long discussion of where they shall take the ship, which ends when Jacob speaks strongly in favor of the Spanish Main. Then a ship is sighted, and they get ready to go and board her; Old Tom and his mate discuss Canty's insolence, but Jacob interjects that "it proves nothing that a man will not drink damnation to a king", although frankly it proves EVERYTHING in that day and age. :P
* Philip and Will Canty throw an unidentified bundle overboard while everyone else is paying attention to the ship they want to capture. CBH is just not very good at that sort of mysterious thing that makes you go *headslap* once you find out what was being prepared for. Anyway, then there is a sea-battle - it turns out the other ship is a pirate too - and nothing really happens, except that Philip fights a knife-duel in the standing rigging while the other ship is trying to grapple them without (FOR SOME REASON) any actual grapnels, and is Noted by Tom the Old One. Again.
* Then Philip is called into council with the master, mate, and boatswain - who is not him - apparently to be threatened at over whatever-it-was that got thrown overboard, which Tom has found out about and he isn't happy. This is not how to write suspense, Mr Hawes! It's just confusing! :P
* OH HAHAHA. I get it now! Philip and Will threw the navigational instruments overboard! ...so Jacob just makes new ones. Yadda yadda boring. And now Old Tom is planning to set a trap for whoever done it. Then there is a chapter of wee incidents that CBH says flat-out are all backstory for things that will happen later. Among these incidents are, that the cook gets drunk and makes a dish of salt fish with the salt left in, and Old Tom makes him eat it all without water and then sit in the stocks on deck without water overnight; and then Philip and Will start making plans in the dark, and even after they remember the cook is there and mock at him, they don't move somewhere else, just keep talking in coded phrases. BECAUSE EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK IS A DOPE. And of course the cook tells Old Tom what he can, which isn't much but does prove Philip and Will are in cahoots over something. Old Tom wants to catch them in their own net, though, so he weaves traps.
* They replace their old mizzenmast with one out of a wrecked ship they find in a Caribbean lagoon, and then go to attack an unnamed town and ransack it for gold and jewels. By arrangement, Old Tom has Will Canty left as one of three guards on the ship while Philip marches with the gang, and secretly leaves Jacob to watch Will. Jacob therefore sees Will get himself sent up a hill as a lookout, and also sees Will eventually wave his shirt as a signal for half an hour, without evident result. THIS IS NOT INTERESTING without some kind of explanation behind it, Charles Boardman Hawes! You give us part of the plan and then show how it will get tangled with the other people's plan, that's how you make it interesting. And then you pull a secret but logically connected part of the plan out from up your sleeve to solve the mess.
* The attack on the town fails. When the pirates get back to their ship, they find Will Canty and one other boy gone, only the cook remaining, since he would have nothing to do with their plan. This was not according to Old Tom's plan, and he grumps at Jacob about it - in Philip's hearing. o_O
* There is cranky mutiny aboard the ship, and far too much talk for too little sense. On the other hand, I'm 70% of the way through already, and not more than halfway impatient; Charles Boardman Hawes did a much better job this time around than the last time, although I'm also expecting less of him. ;-)
* Old Tom cons the people of the town into inviting him and some of his men to dine with them, by claiming to have been attacked by the same pirates who just attacked the town last night. He's got nerve, anyway. In the meantime, Jacob and Philip are left as guards, and Jacob tells Philip to go downstairs and eat dinner, and not to hurry. Twice, with emphasis. It is dark in the dining room with the sun setting, but a mirror in front of Philip shows him the doorway behind him. So when somebody in a hat pops their head over the "gallery rail" (I don't know what this is), Philip promptly slides down into the darkest corner of the cabin and hides there. ...and then stands up so he can still see? Dumb of him. You never know who's going to strike a match.
* And indeed, one of the three men in fancy hats strikes flint and tinder, so Philip asks where they came from and why. They are strangers to him, Englishmen by their voices, and why on earth they snuck aboard the Rose of Devon we do not find out yet. But the man with flint and tinder says he will know Philip again.
* Jacob leaves. Now we find out why his brown hook-nosed face was suddenly compared to that of a rat, earlier in the chapter; he's now compared to a rat who leaves a sinking ship. NOT CUTE, MR HAWES.
* Anyway, Jacob has run away because the ship is going to be boarded - I assume the townspeople pretended to be dumb and accept the pirates'... invitation to invite them for dinner?... while actually taking the opportunity to get them off their ship so as to capture them easily? If this is true, Mr Hawes is finally showing the rudiments of a plot. :D Tentatively good for you, Mr Hawes.
* The pirates come back and the ship is running away from the following townspeople's boats, without getting boarded. WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR, SIR. Anyway, Philip tells Old Tom about Jacob leaving - Philip doesn't know the details because he was in the cabin at the time - and also about the three Englishmen who came on board. Old Tom approves, but because this is a Charles Boardman Hawes book (sorry, I'm really not fond of this guy), he can't leave it at that, but does a major recap of his history with Philip, mentioning Grubby-with-the-Book (as someone who is good to bait, and that Jacob disliked baiting him) and Martin (whose "wits are but a slubbering matter" - oh CBH and your mental ableism. You're a jerk. :P) and then orders Philip to go for'ard and not come abaft the mainmast till wanted.
* Oh, and the pirates have a prisoner, who they are now going to torture in the after cabin, so that makes a little more sense; Old Tom was busy smarming up to Philip there so as to use the torture-times as a test of loyalty on the side. ...and once he figures out he can't take on the entire ship, Philip's first thought is to jump overboard and swim to shore himself? O_O Philip, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU. Anyway, the ship's carpenter talks him out of that, and explains what happened in the town - which is that the Spanish townspeople had Will Canty there to point out Old Tom when he should arrive, so as to kill him first, but that the carpenter recognized Will's voice and the pirates captured him. Which is a good bit of plotting but VERY UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS, sir, that the townspeople have no cleverness of their own! (Because you can bet that Will came up with the whole plan for them. Any takers? *headshake*)
* Of course the pirates don't kill Will straight out. Old Tom has him shackled to the foot of the mizzenmast and brags about being a merciful man, in the best pirate style. Philip was trying to go rescue him, but the carpenter - who rather likes him - grabbed him and was too strong for him, and Philip didn't care to stab him to get away. I don't think much of Philip as a person, but I'm not going to nitpick the carpenter being stronger than him, because I've known some of those skinny wiry old men of the carpenter's physical type, and they tend to be incredibly strong for their skinniness.
* Either the carpenter hasn't got a name or it's only been used once and I haven't picked it up.
* So the next day, having got clean away from the townspeople, they anchor in a little bay and the carpenter builds a coffin for Will Canty. I think Old Tom is planning to bury Will alive. The carpenter is stated to have no moral values beyond saving his own skin; it's arguable whether he's acting in character or as a plot device, these last few chapters. I think it's hard to tell, just because he seems to have no character to act in. (If you're going to use someone as a major supporting character, CBH, give him a personality with opinions of his own. And a name. Names are good.)
* Old Tom orders Philip to help row Will and the coffin to the shore; he seems to be trying to push Philip's loyalty just as far as he can, although either it's fairly well handled or Mr Hawes has now numbed my brain to the point that his plot-logic makes sense. I think it is partly that he's becoming a slightly better writer, though. (And partly ow my brain. *g*) Old Tom does, at least, also take as many other men as the boat will carry - having been in rowboats, I'm a bit suspicious of its holding that many men, actually, but you can't research everything. ;-)
* Will Canty tries to jump overside, actually landing across the gunwale, and somehow DOES NOT TURN THE BOAT TURTLE nor even make her ship water. Yup, my brain is well and truly numbed at this point. ;-) A random sailor hits him across the chin with his gun, getting in the way of Old Tom trying to haul him back inboard; Canty sinks without a trace, CBH asserting he's now dead and that that's the best he could hope for o_O, and Old Tom kills the guy who got in his way by... throwing the coffin at him? The coffin bounces overboard and floats away, the boat STILL does not turn turtle - oh, the guy isn't dead, but Old Tom forces him to run away and maroon himself or be killed, so he does that. But what a stable boat! O_O
* Martin has an untold nightmare that night. WHATEVER. I've no interest in this book anymore. :P I'm at about 80% of the way through, so I may as well finish, but - *headshake* If you have VERY interesting characters, I may forgive a little sloppiness with boats. If you're good at your boats, I'll forgive quite a bit of lazy characterization. But if you're no good with either, why am I reading you? ;-)
* ...whut. This is a very complex sentence; I cannot puzzle it out. "Of all this he [Philip] thought at length, and fearing his own conscience more than all the familiars of the Inquisition, in which he was singularly heartened by remembering the stout old knight in the scarlet cloak [Sir John Bristol], he contrived a plan and bode his time." I haven't the faintest notion what Sir John Bristol is doing in that sentence, except to foreshadow me over the head with a clue-by-four that Philip will wind up meeting him again. Which I already knew, I think.
* So Philip runs away through the trackless jungle without getting lost, despite that he can't navigate in England with an open road before him... :P No more interest at all. A storm happens. Philip is bitten by mosquitoes till he can't see. He comes again to the seashore - okay, he DID get lost? - and sees the Rose of Devon, but doesn't go back aboard her. Friendly natives turn up and cure him of his mosquito bites, and give him food and native bug repellent. (I am just cranky enough to deduce that these poor nameless natives are of the tribe of Plot. ;P) (...you know, I think if I didn't mind snarking at a book without apologizing, I might be a more interesting liveblogger. *g*)
* Philip sees a ship at anchor, tries to figure out whose it is, can't, swims to it anyway - in his underwear, or that's what I take from "removed the greater part of his clothing" - and climbs up the carved sterncastle by way of the rudder. He finds out they are Englishmen on board the ship, but he's gone and sat on a windowsill with one foot inside in order to rest, and an English gentleman who had his writing-desk in a hidden corner by the window (out of the light and without a candle, of course, BECAUSE OF PLOT) grabs Philip by the ankle. Philip doesn't want to fall right down into the water, so he stays put, and the gentleman - who thinks this is all very funny, which it kind of is - has the ship's boy call the captain and they haul Philip inboard.
* Philip begs them to take him home to England. The jolly gentleman makes a random racist joke about how Philip's face has swelled up again (he ran out of native bug-repellent the day before) "till it is as thick-lipped as a Guinea slave's"; the captain, being more Srs Bsnss and not minded to make jokes, cross-examines Philip, who mentions that a ship which may be the Rose of Devon (of course it is) is lying-to on the other side of the point from this harbor. Philip tells when the Rose sailed, who was her lawful master, and other things... I don't know how the captain thinks all this will prove the most important bit of Philip's story, which is, that he didn't turn to piracy wholeheartedly as the other captured sailors (except Will Canty) did. But the captain is the guy with flint and tinder from before, who said he would know Philip again, and he does.
* Okay, the captain is a sensible man, and locks Philip up... in the gun room? Why? (And what on earth is a gun room? O_O I've heard of a gun deck.) Anyway, Philip is locked up all during the battle, and Captain Winterton here with his men captures the Rose of Devon and her pirates. Old Tom is taken alive, and gets this massive paragraph-long encomium from the author on how he could have been a great admiral if... he had merely gone to sea in the time of other kings than James and Charles! I AM HEADDESKING FOREVER, SIR. Old Tom is a bad man, and would not have been a good one if he hadn't been *airquotes* forced into piracy by the horrible state of the British navy at the time when he started sailing. He likes killing people.
* I am sad to say it, Mr Hawes, but I think it is well that you died before you could inflict any more books on the world, even though you were getting better at your writing. :-(
* So then the pirates have their trial, and all but Old Tom (and of course Philip, who doesn't really count I guess) are "revealed as cowards to the marrow of their bones"... CRIMINALS ARE A SUPERSTITIOUS AND COWARDLY LOT, eh Batman? ;P The officers of the law can't find anyone to swear to the identity of any of the pirates as someone who definitely pirated at them, though; and they drag into court the old lady that supplied the "gentlemen" with money, who is going to be hanged next week (they hang women? I've never heard of this happening *must check*), and tell her to turn King's Evidence, but she swears she's never seen any of them before. CBH praises her as noble for this, and condemns Joe Kirk - the guy who ran away with Will Canty - as "a villain of mean spirit" who loses all his honor by IDing the pirates for the court. STOP BEING FULL OF FAIL, MR HAWES.
* And then the pirates are condemned, and Philip is asked for his story because - although everyone has assumed he's one of the pirates so far, because there's no proof that he wasn't spying out Captain Winterton's ship for them to attack - he did make that claim. Also he's cute; the audience are muttering about how "so likely a lad" shouldn't be hanged. ;P So Philip tells his story... oh Hawes. Oh Mr Weirdman Hawes. Philip tells his own story, but when they ask him about anything involving other pirates and not him, he makes a noble face and states that every man must tell his own story, and they can hang him if they want but "he must leave the others to answer those questions for themselves".
* (Be it known here that I have never, ever understood what constitutes "tattling" or why you supposedly shouldn't do it. In my opinion, there's a lot to be said both for standing by your comrades - especially if you got them into a scrape, or were as deep in it as them - and for not perjuring yourself in the dock. But if you were taken by a band of pirates and forced to go along with them, then let them all go hang and save your own neck! If you can do it truthfully. But I'm assuming here that Philip's nobleness in not telling tales is what's going to save him, because everyone in this book lives inside the head of Charles Boardman Hawes, where the rules are different. ;P)
* Hawes makes a big old excuse for how, suuuuure, people have a duty to help uphold the law, but Philip "answered according to his conscience" and so he was all better and more awesomer than the "traitor" who told about the pirates. And then Old Tom is so impressed by Philip's noble-face answer that he swears Philip was forced to go along with them and ought to be freed, and then Captain Winterton conveniently remembers how Other Pirate Boatswain tried to strangle Philip the first night they were all locked up together, and had to be hit on the head. So yadda yadda, Philip is telling the truth and he is a Noble Awesome Boy, I don't care anymore. Philip is a dope! He had chances to leave Martin's company before ever joining the Rose, to get away or to get killed nobly, etc etc etc. He is a dope and I don't like him.
* So Philip is freed, and CBH makes a long speech about how he isn't going to tie up all the loose ends he has left, whatever they are. But he does send Philip back to the inn where he snogged Nell, and finds that she has married the countryman Jamie Barwick who had the gun - not because she had the common sense to know Philip was a dope and waiting to marry him if he ever came back was a loser's proposition, but because she's an overbold low-class serving-wench with bare arms. GO PUT YOUR HEAD IN THE WATER-BUTT, CBH, till you get some common sense yourself! :P
* So Philip goes and demands to see Sir John Bristol, and because Sir John is one of those upperclass knights (who I am convinced are a complete fantasy of writers) who likes to have a man look him in the eye and speak plainly to the border of rudeness... he offers Philip a place as a man-at-arms, then when he finds out Philip's NAME, takes him instead as an honoured guest for the memory of his grandfather, Dr Marsham, who died last year along with Mrs Dr Marsham.
* And the last chapter tells in quick overview how the years pass, how Philip fights against the Roundheads (but respects them, because CBH never met a clue-by-four he didn't like) and becomes a captain, how Sir John is killed in battle, how Philip's inheritance from his granddad is lost in the war, and how Philip finally decides to leave England and runs across the Rose of Devon sitting in harbor. He asks the captain where she's going, and being STILL A DOPE, PHILIP MARSHAM, sounds off about how he hears the colonies are all just like Puritan England now (so he doesn't want to go there) and "as many psalms are whined in Boston as in all the conventicles of London". :P Dope.
* But the new captain, whose name is Hosmer, is okay with that and just laughs at him for not checking the politics of those who would hear him, first, and says they're going to Barbados. So Philip does. End story.
Blaaaaaaaaaah. Done. THAT WAS A LOT OF BOOK.
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(I'm joking. Only in that I doubt the other half would've been any better, though. *g*)