{"id":5227,"date":"2017-04-07T22:03:15","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T12:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5227"},"modified":"2017-04-07T22:03:15","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T12:03:15","slug":"the-marlows-and-the-traitor-part-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/the-marlows-and-the-traitor-part-five\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Marlows and the Traitor\u2019, Part Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday Afternoon (2): Shipwreck<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now we\u2019ve gone back a few hours and are with the children and Foley on the Talisman<\/em>. (I should note that the non-linear narrative and shifting point of view are being used very effectively to increase the tension.) First we see Peter\u2019s perspective. An hour into their trip, Peter has finally and unhappily realised that Foley is not taking them back to Oldport, as he claimed he would, but is up to some traitorous business that will likely end in the Marlows being killed \u2013 and even worse, Peter is helpless to prevent their deaths. On the other hand, he does bravely think that: <\/p>\n

\u201cAt least they were a drag on Foley that he hadn\u2019t bargained for. The microphotographs and the formulae were still within reach. If only they could delay Foley\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Peter has a snoop around the cabin in which he and Ginty are locked (Nicola\u2019s up on deck due to being seasick) and finds some charts which suggest Foley has been meeting enemy ships at sea \u2013 so it seems likely that the children are being taken to the enemy ship to be interrogated and then killed. As Peter tries in vain to think of a way to sabotage the engine, Foley comes in to plot his course on the charts, leaving Nicola to continue steering the boat. Except \u2026 Nicola isn\u2019t keeping to Foley\u2019s original course. Peter can see from the compass that Nicola\u2019s sailing them back to Oldport! Go, Nicola! Then the engine dies!<\/p>\n

Now we switch back to Nicola\u2019s story. Poor Nicola is violently seasick at the start of their trip and Foley kindly gives her his coat and some brandy. Feeling better, she asks what they should do with the dinghy when they get back to Oldport, but Foley makes it known, without actually saying it, that they aren\u2019t going to Oldport at all. Nicola, unlike Peter, accepts that Foley is The Traitor at once, but she\u2019s also more optimistic:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe began to feel more cheerful. If she wasn\u2019t going to be sick again, nothing would be so bad. Not even sailing with a traitor to an unknown destination.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In many ways, the plot of this book is no different to the Famous Five battling smugglers or spies, but what elevates it, apart from the quality of the prose, are all the detailed, astute descriptions of the characters\u2019 reactions. Nicola swings from fear to despair to optimism to curiosity within a few minutes and it\u2019s all completely plausible in this situation. <\/p>\n

Foley goes downstairs to the cabin to plot a course with his charts and leaves Nicola at the tiller. But Nicola realises this is an opportunity to swing the boat around gradually. Although she knows Foley will eventually realise what she\u2019s doing, \u201cjust for the moment it was glorious to have done something that would at least bother him a bit.\u201d She starts humming Robert\u2019s song and then thinks \u2026 Sugar in the petrol!<\/em> And she\u2019s still got the sugar in her pocket for feeding the pony! She can sabotage the engine! (Clever plotting, Antonia Forest.)<\/p>\n

Nicola isn\u2019t merely brave, she\u2019s also smart. She waits as long as she can, allowing them to get much closer to shore, then drops the sugar in the petrol tank just as Foley returns. And there\u2019s more good character observation here, when she thinks that:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026even though Foley was a traitor, it was probably rather mean to wreck his ship when she was still wearing his jacket and he had given her brandy and been really rather kind.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But then Foley hurls Peter into the cabin wall when Peter tries to stop him reaching the tiller and Nicola stops feeling sorry for Foley. Indeed, \u201chis fury and the glimmer of panic behind his eyes made her feel very cool and confident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Serves you right for underestimating Nicola, Foley. The boat crashes into the shore \u2013 and what an amazing coincidence, they\u2019ve arrived at Foley\u2019s Folly Lighthouse!<\/p>\n

Thursday Night (2): The Lighthouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

I probably don\u2019t need to say that Ginty has been entirely useless during their trip and she continues to be useless when they arrive at the lighthouse. Foley locks himself in the lighthouse to transmit a message to the U-boat while the children empty the beached Talisman<\/em> of its stores. Peter does have the good idea of stealing the keys for all the upper lighthouse rooms and throwing them into the sea so Foley won\u2019t be able to lock them in. Over dinner, Foley announces he will sail off on the Talisman<\/em> in the morning and the children will eventually be rescued from the lighthouse. He tries to convince them that no one will believe their story because they\u2019ll have no evidence and anyway, no one knows he\u2019s been at Mariners so the authorities won\u2019t realise he\u2019s disappeared. The Marlows feel \u201cvery young and foolish and helpless\u201d \u2013 and that\u2019s before Foley drugs their cocoa with sleeping tablets.<\/p>\n

As they sleep, Foley goes out to check the condition of the Talisman<\/em>. He\u2019d told the U-boat crew he\u2019d meet them the next morning and they\u2019d given him instructions for murdering the children. Luckily for the Marlows, Foley \u201chad never taken kindly to obeying orders\u201d and while he acknowledges to himself that he is \u201cguilty of treason\u201d, he knows he\u2019s \u201cnever had a bent for cold-blooded cruelty\u201d.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Foley, the Talisman<\/em> is wedged on the rocks and gets torn to pieces when the tide comes in. He remembers the thunderbolt two days ago as a sign of doom \u2013 it was immediately afterwards, shaken by his narrow escape from the storm, that he\u2019d passed Peter and Nicola on the beach and made the mistake of ignoring Peter. He also acknowledges that he\u2019d made an error in kidnapping the children. He should have pretended he was taking the microfilms to the police, then disappeared at once. Now it\u2019s inevitable that he\u2019ll be unmasked as a spy, one way or the other, and his foreign \u2018allies\u2019 will have no use for him when he no longer has access to navy secrets. Foley sees \u201chis death quite clearly\u201d. But then he reconsiders:<\/p>\n

\u201cThunderbolts and fate were all very well, but he didn\u2019t really believe a word of it. He had been in corners as tight as this before, and had always escaped disaster.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But how is<\/em> he going to get out of this, now that his only means of transport is gone? He contacts the U-boat again. The navy fleet exercises over the weekend mean the U-boat will now pick Foley and the children up on Sunday. Foley changes his mind again:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was certain now that, rationally speaking, he and the children would not be alive by Sunday evening.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This could all be avoided if he surrendered to the British authorities. The children would be saved; he would go to prison as a traitor, but he\u2019d avoid death. His pride will not allow this, though:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026trial and imprisonment was something he would not face; the children\u2019s safety could not weigh against that \u2026 He had always told himself that he would prefer death at the hands of the people he had served to the justice of those he had betrayed\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And this is a CHILDREN\u2019S BOOK! This portrayal of a villain involves a level of subtlety and psychological complexity that you don\u2019t even find in a lot of adult<\/em> spy novels of the time.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t think that Antonia Forest is going to kill off any of her child characters. (I<\/em> would, but probably not in the second book of a series.) Still, things are getting very serious here.<\/p>\n

Next, Friday Morning: Breakfast at the Lighthouse<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday Afternoon (2): Shipwreck Now we\u2019ve gone back a few hours and are with the children and Foley on the Talisman. (I should note that the non-linear narrative and shifting point of view are being used very effectively to increase the tension.) First we see Peter\u2019s perspective. An hour into their trip, Peter has finally … Continue reading \u2018The Marlows and the Traitor\u2019, Part Five<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-5227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-antonia-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5227"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5230,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5227\/revisions\/5230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}