The Red Eric

Description

The Red Eric is the ship, not the boy. Hear Ballantyne’s whaling cruise unabridged in English: Captain Dunning of the red whiskers, Glynn Proctor leaving a printing-office for the South Seas, little Alice sailing too, Tim Rokens in the boats. Storm, chase, a wreck, life on a sandbank, a long pull home. Listen to the work of the fishery — iron in the whale, the cook’s galley, the law-suit waiting in harbour. Spoken seamanship with a moral pulse, not a lecture. Camaraderie as noise and order. A boys’ ocean you can hear: wind, oar, and the last cruise of a named hull. Alice Dunning on deck, a fight that forces Glynn into disguise to join, African landings, a whale that interrupts a worse quarrel. Hear the sandbank thirst and the boat built for home, then English law waiting like another weather.