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It is 1858. Young sailor William Lee is spending his last few days at the village of Burmarsh before leaving on the Waldershare, in his first journey as second mate, around the Horn to the west coast of the Americas. His sweetheart, Nelly Williams, like him an orphan, promises that when he returns they will become engaged.
Feeling the pain of leaving her, he joins the ship in London. They set off down the Thames, ready to collect passengers at Gravesend. Once all are aboard the voyage proper begins. But William is astonished when one of the cabin doors opens, to reveal - Nelly! Unbeknownst to him, she has been unable to resist the temptation to be with him, and has booked a passage. William is overjoyed.
But his concerns do not limit themselves to this joyous circumstance. He and the first mate become increasingly aware that their captain, Flanders, is not a well man in his mind. Their many battles with his paranoia and vindictiveness finally end in the far South Atlantic in tragedy, after which they are forced to assume control of the ship.
With the Horn successfully rounded, and travelling into the Eastern Pacific, they discover an abandoned hulk, very low, full of water, kept afloat by her load of timber. William goes aboard and finds no-one, but gets stuck there alone by the sudden onset of a gale. The Waldershare disappears in the tempest. Days later, frightened and alone, thinking with agony of Nelly, he wakes up to find that, in the night, three of the Waldershare's men have come back to the hulk in a boat, and with them, unbelievably, his sweetheart! Nelly and the men tell a tale of horror, as they describe the sinking of the Waldershare after she struck a reef.
Can William, Nelly and the men steer the hulk to safety? They are so far out in the ocean that the task seems impossible. One thing is sure: survival will only come if sore trials are endured.
A Sailor's Sweetheart, W. Clark Russell's lush, stirring novel of survival at incredible odds, was first published in 1880.
