The Project Gutenberg EBook of Overdue, by Harry Collingwood

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Title: Overdue
The Story of a Missing Ship

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: W. Herbert Holloway

Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #21067]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OVERDUE ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Overdue
The Story of a Missing Ship

By Harry Collingwood
________________________________________________________________________
Another very well-written book by Collingwood. As he was a naval
architect you can rely upon his descriptions of the deck and sails of a
vessel of the mid nineteenth century, the period of which he writes.

Our hero, the 17-year-old midshipman of the Salamis, is suddenly given
the job of going aboard and taking command of the Mercury, an emigrant
ship that they find drifting in mid-ocean, all her officers having died
in various accidents, and the illiterate bosun and the ship's carpenter
knowing full well that they had no idea how to navigate. He takes
charge and all appears to be going well, when-- But I will not spoil a
good story for you.

Full of events, and seamen's humour, this books makes a good audiobook,
and you will enjoy it.
________________________________________________________________________
OVERDUE
THE STORY OF A MISSING SHIP

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

CHAPTER ONE.

THE "MERCURY" APPEARS.

This is a yarn of the days when the clipper sailing-ship was at the
zenith of her glory and renown; when she was the recognised medium for
the transport of passengers--ay, and, very frequently, of mails between
Great Britain and the Colonies; and when steamers were, comparatively
speaking, rare objects on the high seas. True, a few of the great
steamship lines, such as the Cunard and the Peninsular and Oriental,
were already in existence; but their fleets were only just beginning to
compete, and with but a very limited measure of success, against the
superb specimens of marine architecture owned by the Black Ball and
other famous lines of sailing clippers. For the Suez Canal had not yet
been dug, and--apart from the overland journeys to Ind