Wager - Hardcover

Woodman, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719547849 ISBN 13: 9780719547843

Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd, 1990

Synopsis

Wrenched from her peaceful home in Victorian London, Hannah Kemball must accompany her father to China, where her father is about to compete in a long and dangerous sailing race. Hannah discovers that her father has made an extravagant bet about the race's outcome, involving her own future.

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Woodman is a distinguished, prize-winning maritime author. He served at sea from the age of sixteen, spent eleven years in command, spent six years in operational management and is today an Elder Brother of Trinity House. The author of a number of novels, his historical studies include Arctic Convoys 1941-1945, Malta Convoys 194-1943, The Real Cruel Sea: The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943 and a five volume History of the British Merchant Navy.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

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.'

About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0719547849
• ISBN 13: 9780719547843
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1