The Lonely Sea

The Lonely Sea
Alistair MacLean

Collection of riveting tales of the sea including the story that launched his writing career, the account of the epic battle to sink the German battle ship, Bismarck, and two new stories collected here for the first time.THE MASTER STORYTELLER IN HIS ELEMENT…Alistair MacLean has an unmistakable and unrivalled skill in writing about the sea and its power and about the men and women who sail it, and who fight and die in it.His distinctive voice was evident from his very first prize-winning story, ‘The Dileas’, and has been heard time and again in his international career as the author of such bestsellers as H.M.S. Ulysses and San Andreas.The Lonely Sea starts where MacLean’s career started, with ‘The Dileas’, and collects together his stories of the sea. Here is a treasury of vintage MacLean, compelling and brilliant, where the master storyteller is in his element.This reissue includes two new stories, ‘The Good Samaritan’ and ‘The Black Storm’, which bear all the classic hallmarks of MacLean’s finest writing and are published here for the very first time.

Alistair Maclean

The Lonely Sea

Collected Short Stories

Copyright (#ulink_a90299b2-c6f6-5b67-8a9f-278dfb6b3c8b)

HarperCollins An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

FIRST EDITION

First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1985 then in paperback by Fontana 1986

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1985, 2009

Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

City of Benares, The Arandora Star, Rawalpindi, The Meknes, The Jervis Bay and Lancastriapublished by the Sunday Express 1960.

Rewards and Responsibilities of Success, The Black Storm and The Good Samaritan published by the Glasgow Herald 1982, 1995 and 1996.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006172772

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2009 ISBN: 9780007289332

Version: 2018-11-21

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u34b74af8-22d1-56a5-a239-e74624602e53)

Title Page (#u8e2fdb5c-997b-5a05-a761-a7db6b995926)

Copyright (#u282c7f09-0614-561e-b01f-fbaa967691c0)

The Dileas (#u69f4d09a-a5a2-5906-9a4d-fd457cb118cb)

St George and the Dragon (#u10b78e31-7013-5c73-9925-5c732d0804f8)

The Arandora Star (#u96dba103-3c4f-5419-b1b6-2167d4fd9ca7)

Rawalpindi (#ue29a2dce-d699-5252-96e7-ac8fa13ebdf9)

The Sinking of the Bismarck (#ub5ce76ec-5151-5083-b693-76e8ac9da020)

The Meknes (#litres_trial_promo)

MacHinery and the Cauliflowers (#litres_trial_promo)

Lancastria (#litres_trial_promo)

McCrimmon and the Blue Moonstones (#litres_trial_promo)

They Sweep the Seas (#litres_trial_promo)

City of Benares (#litres_trial_promo)

The Gold Watch (#litres_trial_promo)

Rendezvous (#litres_trial_promo)

The Jervis Bay (#litres_trial_promo)

The Black Storm (#litres_trial_promo)

The Good Samaritan (#litres_trial_promo)

Postscript: Rewards and Responsibilities of Success (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By Alistair MacLean (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

The Dileas (#ulink_c1d36dda-95ff-53a8-b68e-fdc002fca79c)

Three hours gone, Mr MacLean, three hours—and never a word of the lifeboat.

You can imagine just how it was. There were only the four of us there—Eachan, Torry Mor, old Grant, and myself. Talk? Never a word among the lot of us, nor even the heart of a dram—and there on the table, was a new bottle of Talisker, and Eachan not looking for a penny.

We just sat there like a lot of stookies, Seumas Grant with his expressionless face and yon wicked old pipe of his bubbling away, and the rest of us desperately busy with studying the pattern of the wallpaper. Listening to the screech of the wind, we were, and the hail like chuckies battering against the windows of the hotel. Dhia! What a night that was! And the worst of it was, we couldn’t do a thing but wait. My, but we were a right cheery crowd.

I think we all gave a wee bit jump when the telephone rang. Eachan hurried away and was back in a moment beaming all over. One look at yon great moonface of his and we felt as if the Pladda Lighthouse had been lifted off our backs.