{"id":5234,"date":"2017-04-10T21:25:19","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T11:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5234"},"modified":"2017-04-10T21:25:19","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T11:25:19","slug":"the-marlows-and-the-traitor-part-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/the-marlows-and-the-traitor-part-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Marlows and the Traitor\u2019, Part Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday Morning: Peter Makes a Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s plan is that he will hide in the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse and Ginty and Nicola will pretend he\u2019s drowned during an escape attempt. Then that night, Peter and Nicola will signal to the passing fleet while Ginty keeps watch. Ginty is appalled by her proposed role and confesses that she failed to act the last time she was meant to be keeping watch, at Mariners. There\u2019s a nice bit of sibling bonding as Nicola and Peter console her, saying it wouldn\u2019t have made any difference (probably true) and Peter even says it isn\u2019t worse than \u201cthe boat thing\u201d. Ginty has no idea what \u201cthe boat thing\u201d is, but suspects they still think her \u201ca bit of a dope\u201d (also probably true). <\/p>\n

She has a chance to prove her courage during the first phase of the plan, when she and Nicola have to take the dinghy through the secret tunnel to get to the sea. And Ginty does it in stoic silence! Well done, Ginty. Then Nicola hops out and Ginty rows the dinghy into the wild waves, far enough out to wreck it. There\u2019s a terrifying section when she nearly drowns trying to swim back in, but it\u2019s also the first time I can recall Ginty showing much care for anyone else:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe struggled on furiously, watching Nick wade slowly forward, slip, recover and come on, and was so absorbed by her fear that Nicola might stumble and be swept away that she barely noticed how close in she had come \u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mind you, it\u2019s possible that Ginty\u2019s just worried about her parents\u2019 reaction if they ever find out she let Nicola drown. (I should point out here that Nicola can barely swim and can\u2019t row, which seems a bit odd for someone as obsessed with sailing as Nicola is. But she and Lawrie did seem to spend many of their early years being invalids.) Then Nicola, striding \u201cconfidently forward\u201d, steps straight into the sea, but luckily Foley has turned up and hauls her out of the water. Ginty, on the verge of a panic attack, then does a very convincing job of explaining Peter has drowned. Her general uselessness does have some use here \u2013 Foley doesn\u2019t even question her story. In fact, he finds her uncontrollable sobbing \u201cthoroughly unnerving\u201d and ends up banishing her from his presence.<\/p>\n

Back at the lighthouse, Foley goes up to the highest room, the lantern room, to see if Peter has washed up on the shore. Unfortunately, the lantern room is where Peter is hiding. Nicola, petrified, tries to stall Foley, but fails. Foley comes back down after \u201ca long silence\u201d and shakes his head at her. But what does that mean? She\u2019s seen how good he is at playing chess, she knows he must be good at telling lies (\u201cA traitor would have to be\u201d). Is he playing with her the way a cat plays with a mouse?<\/p>\n

\u201cBesides, if Foley had<\/strong> found Peter, they would have to make another plan. At least\u2013she<\/strong> would have to make another plan. There wasn\u2019t anyone else.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just as it seems Nicola must have super-human reserves of resilience and fortitude, she falls asleep while she\u2019s meant to be watching Foley and sleeps through the whole day, \u201clike the dormouse in Alice<\/em>\u201d. (I like all the little references to the books she’s read. Even though she claimed not to be a reader in Autumn Term<\/em>.) <\/p>\n

So we still don\u2019t know whether Peter\u2019s safe or not. Oh, the suspense!<\/p>\n

Saturday Afternoon: Mutiny in the \u2018Golden Enterprise\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Robert and his two colleagues, David and Bill, are making their slow way towards the lighthouse. Except Bill, who wasn\u2019t feeling well when he came aboard, now has a fever and possibly appendicitis. David insists on turning back to Oldport at once. Robert wants to keep going because there\u2019s the chance that the U-boat will turn up.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018But I keep telling you,\u2019 shouted David. \u2018The U-boat\u2019s barely a possibility at the moment. If you weren\u2019t so obsessed about those Marlow children we wouldn\u2019t be here now. Whittier said so.\u2019
\n\u2018Said what?\u2019
\n\u2018That you had to be kept quiet and happy, and that out here you could have the illusion of being useful without making a nuisance of yourself\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Robert refuses to turn back before the turn of tide, so David smashes him on the head, locks him in the cabin and sails back to Oldport.<\/p>\n

This, I assume, is that famous British naval discipline and obedience in action. <\/p>\n

Conveniently for David (and the plot), Robert is knocked unconscious for three hours, exactly enough time for them to get back to Oldport, yet has no serious cognitive after-effects. David gives an insincere apology and offers to take the blame \u201cif anything goes wrong\u201d, but wisely goes off with Bill in the ambulance because Robert is looking dangerously calm:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026despite his manner, [Robert] felt so savage with rage, that if he once gave it expression, he was not likely to stop at words. As he very well knew, he had a temper as murderous as Lewis Foley\u2019s if he once let himself go.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s pretty clear that we\u2019re meant to see Robert and Foley as similar men who\u2019ve made very different choices in life, one choosing good and the other evil. If anything, Robert is more<\/em> admirable, because he chose the side of good without having been born with all of Foley\u2019s material privileges. On the other hand, Robert seems to have had a closer and more loving family than Foley, so maybe Robert was born the luckier one? <\/p>\n

While Robert is having dinner and contemplating David\u2019s violent and painful death, the Thorpes\u2019 motor boat, the Fair Wind<\/em>, crashes straight into Robert\u2019s boat and destroys her. Mr Thorpe is very apologetic and Robert is about to ask if he can borrow the Fair Wind<\/em> when he suddenly suspects Mr Thorpe is connected with the U-boat. Maybe he deliberately crashed the boat to stop Robert! So Robert waits till the Thorpes have left, then steals the Fair Wind<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 in a job like this neither praise nor blame mattered very much. The thing was to get it done. And if you broke a few rules doing it\u2013well, if you pulled it off no one cared, and if you didn\u2019t, nothing anyone could say would be worse than the failure itself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the moral of the story is: the end justifies the means, if you\u2019re one of the good guys.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Johnnie Thorpe climbs aboard at the wrong moment, but he agrees to help when Robert pretends to be a smuggler and waves a knife at Johnnie. It turns out Mr Thorpe is actually a Customs and Excise officer. Also, Johnnie was the one who crashed into the Golden Enterprise<\/em>. Also, there\u2019s hardly any petrol left.<\/p>\n

IS ANYONE EVER GOING TO REACH THAT LIGHTHOUSE AND RESCUE THOSE CHILDREN?!<\/p>\n

Next, Saturday Night: Foley\u2019s Folly Light<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday Morning: Peter Makes a Plan Peter\u2019s plan is that he will hide in the lantern room at the top of the lighthouse and Ginty and Nicola will pretend he\u2019s drowned during an escape attempt. Then that night, Peter and Nicola will signal to the passing fleet while Ginty keeps watch. Ginty is appalled by … Continue reading \u2018The Marlows and the Traitor\u2019, Part Seven<\/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-5234","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\/5234","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=5234"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5238,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5234\/revisions\/5238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}