STANDARDS LEFT RAGGED
C. D. White
Broadside Press
ISBN: 0-9726303-8-4
130 pages
4 ½ standards
Standards Left Ragged is a continuation of A Fairaday and Marlborough Adventure. In this book we find Phillip Fairaday and Lieutenant Eliot Marlborough on opposite sides of the American Revolutionary War. In the first book, The Loyalist's Son, both men were loyal to the British cause and had formed a bond between them that became closer when Marlborough fell in love with Fairaday's sister, Sarah. Phillip had brought Marlborough to his home to recuperate from wounds suffered in a sea battle. It would seem that all would be well between the men, but loyalties have changed. Phillip Fairday is no longer a king's man, but has gone over to the Yankee cause and smuggling. He is sailing the ship Javelin and trying to outrun an English ship, the Roebuck when the Javelin hits a sandbar off the Virginia coast. The Roebuck's second lieutenant is Eliot Marlborough. Several British cutters are in the area and one sends a party to board the Javelin. Fairaday and some of his men manage to overpower the boarding party, and they make for the British scutter, They scuttle the Javelin. Phillip decides to try to save the British men by giving them a lifeboat by which to survive, but the British who managed to get to the boat fire on the Yankees and several are maimed or killed. Those left of Fairaday's crew escape in the British cutter. Things go from bad to worse for Fairaday. When they reach land, some of his men are mutinous, one man is found by Phillip murdered by another of his men, the assailant unknown. The captain of the English ship Roebuck isn't too happy either. As one of the British cutters is missing and the Javelin was not intercepted but was scuttled by her men.
Marlborough manages to get a ship to captain again, and keeps going after those merchant ships along the Virginia coasts who are unloyal to the crown and cause havoc. He knows that one of those men is his brother-in-law, Phillip. Meanwhile, Fairday gets back to port, again gets control of the ship Weasel, but while ashore finds he is charged with the murder of the man he found killed.
If you enjoy reading of men of the sea and sea battles, you'll enjoy the continuing story of Fairady and Marlborough. Author C. D. White is very knowledgeable about ships of the American Revolution period and the history. As I finished this book, I felt it is an interlude between The Loyalist's Son and what book is yet to come. This short book has not quite the plot needed for a complete story, but is an interesting read nonetheless. If you plan to read Standards left Ragged be sure to read The Loyalist's Son first. The Loyalist's Son is truly an excellent book and this continues the tale of sea adventures of the Revolution and the stories of Fairaday and Marlborough. Men of the sea and sea warfare historians are sure to enjoy Mr. White's books.
Jaye Dee Tyrack, Reviewer for Gotta Write Network
April 8, 2006
copyright Jaye Dee Tyrack & GWN
