the war
p. 96 · Read in the full issue
Some fun at the war
THE wartime Pacific is the setting for a pleasant bit of entertain ment by American writer Phillip Rock. The Extraordinary Seaman is a novel that begins somewhere off the Philippines and ends in Northern Australia, and in between we are treated to the misadventures of a small lost party of US Navy men who almost get back into the war again.
Their only officer, Lt. Morton Krim, has never been to sea before and has not the faintest idea about how to lead men. Lt, Krim only joined the Navy because the Navy needed cost accountants.
The fun increases when the Yanks come ashore on an island where they find a beached riverboat, The Curlew, and her captain, Commander Finchhaven, RN, a Colonel Blimp character who can’t stop singing Gibert and Sullivan songs and downing good Scotch.
Commander Finchhaven does his best to lead The Curlew into battle with a Japanese cruiser—with amus ing results.—K. McG.
(The Extraordinary Seaman
Hutchinson Publishing Group. $3.15).