Michael F. Page (1922–2014)

Am Allied convoy is attacked by a German raider in the North Atlantic and the Austrian Duke sinks. Six members of her crew make it into a life boat cold and wet. Soon Raven, one of the survivors, sees a raft with other survivors and eventually swims with a rope to bring the raft to their life boat saving the two American nurses and a doctor.

Then they spot a disabled ship which the crew has abandoned, manage to climb aboard where they find food and warm clothing. However, a U-boat finds them and sends three crew members to capture them but in the attempt the U-Boat flees leaving the three German sailors behind.

The ship changes hands a couple of times between the Germans and the survivors with everyone hoping to make it to shore to claim salvage and make a fortune. However, not all is happy as Raven faces a crew member who is waiting for an opportunity to kill him. The two women fight over him and the German officer uses him.

A lively adventure that never stops presenting twists and turns. The reader will learn much about how a cargo vessel works with special emphasis on the workings of a coal fire merchant vessel in WW II.… (plus d'informations)

I'll be up-front about it. I am a fan of Robert Ingpen's illustration work. And I bought this book for a bargain price at a second hand book sale...otherwise it might have been too expensive to tempt me. But it is a treasure. I found myself quite captivated by the script written by Michael Page. He has written a number of books in conjunction with Robert Ingpen. They certainly have a lively imagination between the two of them. My admiration for Robert Ingpen's work actually goes back to the days when I worked as an agricultural scientist and Ingpen was an illustrator for a journal published by Australia's CSIRO (a scientific research organisation). I didn't know who was behind the marvellous illustrations in the journal. And it was only, very much later that I discovered it was the same Ingpen who's work I admired in such wonderful books as Treasure Island and Tom Sawyer. Interestingly enough, I note that Ingpen carried over some of his learning from his scientific illustrator days. His Hairy Peruvian gnomes who travelled the sea in a poppy kettle have actually taken their name from a variety of subterranean clover called "Hairy Peruvian".
Normally, I am rather put-off by books which slavishly follow an encyclopaedia format laid out in alphabetical order. This book does follow this format to some extent but in a rather relaxed manner....as though Page and Ingpen between them ...more or less just followed what they, personally found interesting. And, in Ingpen's case, I guess, where he could draw on his earlier artwork. I would really liked to have had some more information about Ingpen's art technique. Does he work in watercolour? or ink and watercolour? Does he use gouache a lot? Is he working in oils? It's hard to tell. What scale does he work at and are all his painting reduced in size for printing? So many questions and no answers. They do, however.....in a tiny note at the end of the book....acknowledge that they are following in the great tradition fo Arthur Rackham and Howard Pyle. In other words the illustration style is distinctively realist ...but with somewhat fuzzy edges. (I did read somewhere that Ingpen kept a worn out brush which he used for textures and hair and such like). Must say that I love his textured backgrounds and his careful research. The guy has been so prolific over his career. I wonder how many thousands of illustrations he must have produced over the years?
this version of the book is a large hardback ...and if you haven't already realised, it is wonderfully illustrated throughout. Worth having just for the illustrations ....I don't know how many there are in the book.....but just did a quick count of two samples of ten pages and came up with an average of 1.5 Illustrations per page. Of course some are full-page and others quite small. But, apart from the illustrations the text is quite entertaining. I assume the target market was children though I just enjoyed reading about such thing as the "vail" which is the coin which one must pay the ferry man Charon for passage across the river Acheron en route to the underworld. The knowledge roams across Australian Aboriginal legends, Nordic, African...in fact...anything which seems to have taken the fancy of the two authors. Strongly recommend it.… (plus d'informations)