Evening star., 1933-11-15
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
Margaret Cermond.
THE BIRD OF DAwNINa; or The

4 Hciu. NcN 1Ofh- he MdCIlllilaH To-
| When as lad John Masefield ship
ped before the mast on the Conway,
1t was the job that was important and
/ not the manner of work he might be
required to do. The necessity to earn
/ a livelihood had not given him much
| opportunity to cnoose the kind of oc-
| cupation i'll which he might engage.
! He had worked in numerous capacities
before he went to sea, and he accumu-
lated a wide variety of experiences for
| a number of years afterward. But
/ once a lad puts to sea as a member
OF the crew of a ship he is forever
| after a seaman He may never again
| serve before the mast. but he will never
| lose the taste OF the sea, nor will he
ever despise or forget the thrill of feel
! ing ship respond to the wind or to
the power of steam.
John Masefield did not adopt the sea
as q profession. but the sea adopted
| him. He is known to the world as a
| poet and writer, but Neptune's bless
! ing still rests upon him, adding TO the
| ability of great artist in the use of
words the soul of a seaman.
In the opening paragraph of his new
! story, Mr. Masetield Identifies Cruiser"
| Trewsbury, second mate of the clipper
/ Blackgauntlet, as having served on the
| Conway. This gives some foundation
for the belief that perhaps the tale is
not entirely fiction; that back in the
days when the author was a seaman
| there might have been a character like
| Cruiser, and that such an experience
as that related in "Tha Bird Of Dawn
| ing" may have been shared by the
| young seaman and his remarkable sec
ond mate.
The story is timed at seventy years
ago, when the Sail3 Of clippers were
common sight upon the seven seas. and
| 1t pictures the once famous annual race
| of the ships in the China tea trade.
Shortly before 4 O'Clock in the morn
| ing during the blackness of wild North
| Atlantic storm. the Blackgauntlet was
| rammed by an unknown hit-and-run
ship. In seventeen minutes the vessel
| went down like stone, filling the night
| With the gurgling means of air forced
I through water as she sank.
In that short lapse of time lifeboats
! were provisioned and lowered into the
raging sea. When the light of early
dawn brought vision to those who had
suffered the tortures of shipwreck and
| hours Of darkness in an open boat,
his charge were the only survivors
With their ship gone; their hope of
winning the coveted prize and bounties
| offered to the winner of the race
blasted; their provisions low. their
boat not any too Stanch. and their
nearest possible port 900 miles and more
| away, these men were faced by starva-
ton, thirst. drowning. madness and
] every extremity OF danger. Possibly
they would be picked up, and possibly
| they would not Cruiser. not yet twen-
ty-two years old, automatically became
master. Immediately organizing the crew
and taking stock Of the supplies in order
that the daily proportion of each man
might be calculated
This done, Cruiser tackled the prob
lem of setting course and of keep
ing his charges alive and safe in an
18-foot open boat for number of days
which might possibly stretch into two.
weeks.
The first part of the story deals with
the wreck OF the ship which was be-
lieved to have the best chance of VIM
ming the race, and then with the hard
ships and the nightmarish experiences
OF her survivors THE Bird Of Dawn
ing" makes late entrance into the
narrative, but every preceding event
smoothly that when the moment of her
appearance arrives the scene is one so
intensely dramatic as to be awe-in-
spring.
1t is difficult to say whether the poet
or the seaman is supreme in the mar
ration Of the experiences of Cruiser
Trewsbury. On the one hand, 1t Is all
sea; on the other, there is so mitch
beauty and depth of emotion in the
descriptive passages that it is sheer
poetry. The master artist and the soul
of the seaman are united in this epic
of by-gone day.
THE DRAGON MURDER CASE. BY
| S. s. Van Dine. New York: Charles
Scrlbner's Sons.
To those who are always eagerly
| awaiting the next fantastic puzzle
which the famous Philo Vance is to
solve. Mr.. Van Dine now offers, a
mystery which involves the lore of
| dragons and the superstitions which
have for ages prevailed in many lands
and in many religions concerning their
capacities for good and evil
| On the first evening of house party
assembled at the Stamm estate in In
wood Park, New York. the guests pre-
pare for a swim In the Dragon Pool,
about which many myths attributed to
| 1t by the Indians have survived. San
| ford Montague, fiance of Bernice
| Stamm, is the first TO dive. He fails
to come again to the surface of the
pool, and as soon as it is patent that
| something has happened to him other
members OF the party enter the water
TO search for him. His body Is not
found, and. without consulting his host
OfllHF mHmnaTC a
Gale Leland, an intimate friend of the
Stamm family, telephones the police.
| Sergt. Heath OF the Homicide Bureau
goes out to Inwood expecting to find
that an accident occurred and that
| he should not have been sent for. He
soon learns, however, that there is
something queer about the affair. and
IS SO impressed with the peculiar atmos-
phere of the place that he is moved TO
call Immediately upon District At
| torney Markham, who happens to be
visiting the aStute Mr.. Vance.
The district attorney is not impressed
With the creepinesS which peryades the
place but finally consents to have the
pool drained. When the water has run
| off there is no body, but in the mud
on the bottom of the pool there are
prints which appear to have been made
by monster. The mother of Rudolph
and Bernice Stamm is mentally un-
balanced and is confined to the upper
story of the house. She has some
hallucination about a great flying
dragon which sometimes makes its
home in the quiet waters of the pool.
She insists that the dragon was in the
pool on the evening of the murder. and
that it flew of with It's victim accord
ing to its custom
house party of ill-assorted people,
practically all of whom disliked and
mistrusted each other; no one in the
pool when Montague made his dive;
partially insane elderly woman and the
footprints of a monster on the bed of
the pooll Every character in the story
Is, OF course, suspect, but what about
the monster and the laclr of O hod,to