Evening star., 1933-09-27
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
Margaret Cern,Ond.

Margaret Cermond.
THE HALF DECK. BY Capt. George
H. Grant. With illustrations by
Gordon Grant. Boston: Little,
Brown 6 Co.
When the old tramp steamer Mon
arch steamed down the Bristol Chan
mel on Q mild June evening IN 1912,
bound for Iquique, Chile, with cargo
Of coal, she had on board q lad who
was destined In the short span Of two
years to rise from the lowly estate Of
apprentice on the half deck TO COM
mand Of the ship. Trae, the command
was Of short duration, but with unex-
pected and unbelievable rapidity the
events of the second voyage came to q
critical climax, and this lad Of sixteen
brought into port as its captain the
ship on which he had set sail as an ap-
prentice seaman.
The lad was George H. Grant Of
Scotland, and to the natural question
Of the seaman who escorted him from
the train to the dock, You're a bit
young, aren't you?" he boastingly re-
piled mo, not so very. I'm three
months over fourteen-be fifteen my
next birthday"
Capt. Grant is now the commander
of the S. S. San Bias, a position
which he has filled for the past ten
years, and at thirty seven years Of age
is one of the youngest captains on the
sea. At the outbreak of the Great War
in 1914 young Grant was cadet
| on a ship on the west coast Of Africa.
He returned home and enlisted in the
made it impossible for him to adjust
| to land duty, and he was promptly
| discharged. He then enlisted in the
Navy and was sent on one of the
notorious decoy ships to South Amer
| lean waters, but there was not enough
excitement in that kind Of duty to
satisfy his avid thirst for adventure, so
he resigned and entered the Trans
port Service, where things proved more
| lively.
On his first voyage in this service
his ship was blown up in the South
Atlantic and with twenty-three men in
the lifeboat Of which he had charge he
sailed 720 miles in seven days, landing
safely all but one of his men. On the
next two trips his ships were torpedoed,
and then he suffered a collision in the
Mediterranean. Again he sailed in the
service of his country, and again he
was torpedoed An extraordinary rec
ord of experiences is this for any man,
and it is particularly so for lad who
was but twenty-five years old when the
war ended in 1918.
| But The Half Deck" does not deal
with the war experiences Of Capt
Grant 1t is devoted strictly to his
| first two years as seaman and his
! first two voyages to sea. In the twenty
months which made up the first voyage
| this intrepid young ambitionist. af-
low ntn1xy 1ah la5 T7nv 1oa nyy
Bruce Burns, his counsel, guide and
| friend throughout his apprenticeship,
I he was treated to more adventure and
; hardship than the majority of people
| in this world experience in long life
time He literally began his career as a
seaman by unwittingly getting himself
| into fight the finish with his sullen
and bullying roOmmate-with all hands
| on deck to witness the bout. Coming
! out victorious, he won the affection
and esteem Of the entire crew, and
| though they tricked him, bossed him,
| took advantage of him. gave him every
imaginable menial task to do and en-
deavored generally to make his life as
miserable as possible. he took it on the
chin and enjoyed it. To be sent for
the key to the keelson, and to be de-
| liberately told terrifying tales as to
! what Father Neptune might subject
him to in administering the rites of
| initiation into the mysteries Of the
great waters were episodes not easily
! to be forgiven, but he held no grudges.
His mates were making a seaman of
| him, and he knew it.
Everything that happened he ac-
cepted as a part of the great adven-
ture to which he had committed him.
self It was fun to fight a gale so
fierce that the ship might 60 down at
any moment. It was fun to work with
frozen ropes and broken chains in a
raging blizzard, to stand the long lonely
watches on bitter cold nights, to sleep
| in wet bunk and to undergo hardships
for hours on end without rest or food.
| He studied furiously to learn every
! thing there is to know about navigating
a ship. and from each member of, the
/ crew he made it point to learn some
| thing. From Percy Hall he took lessons
| in navigation; from Bruce Burns he
| learned something of everything; from
| the third mate he learned the signals
| and codes; from the boatswain he
learned to make a knot and to turn a
| splice; Mccarthy the lamp trimmer,
taught him to spit into the wind so
that it would not blow back into his
| face, and from Paddy Doyle he learned
he has not yet mastered the art of
| chewing q quid, but he is hoping that
he may yet become proficient in that
accomplishment.
| Capt. Grants descriptions of his
mates and associates on board the
! Monarch. from Bruce Burns up to
/ Capt. MacFarlane and down to the
stokers, are as vivid as are the adven-
lures in which all of them participated.
The pen and ink sketches which ac-
company these character delineations
are of high merit and they contribute
an additional zest to the enjoyment of
| the book
Every phase of life on a tramp
steamer, together with experiences in
fighting raging storms, binding bliz-
yards, screeching hurricanes, the salvage
of derelicts, dismal efforts to make q
merry Christmas, unhappy events in
strange ports and the innumerable ad-
ventures which make up the life of a
sailor are told with simplicity and di-
rectness. There has been no effort at
dramatic effect, but drama is present
in every chapter.
Few tramp steamers ever put out to
sea and return to the home port with
out having come upon new and strange
adventures. But 1t is to be doubted
| whether there was ever a lad whose
first voyage was so filled with ex-
traordinary events as was that of
"Tommy-lad" From the moment he
jumped from the dock onto the deck
of the Monarch the unusual began
to happen. and it kept on happening,
through the Straits of Magellan and
back again to Cardiff. Climax upon
climax attended the entire voyage, and
the only real heartarche in the long,
hard months came at the parting with
Bruce Burns when the ship tied up in
the home dock. Near the end of the
second voyage a mutiny which had
been threatening when the trip began
broke out with a vengeance, and, In
circumstances which it would be unfair
to tell. "Tommy-lad." aged sixteen
steers his ship into port. He is in
command.
Just why a lad born inland should
take to navigation Is question
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