Hanley, James Sailor's Song

As he lies unconscious on a life raft drifting at sea and tended by several of his shipmates after their ship has been torpedoed, English stoker John Manion noisily dreams of his past seafaring and home life. Manion, “ over fifty, nearer sixty, as grey as grey goes, an old-timer”is respected by his mates as “a good sailor-man,” and none believe that he’ll survive his ordeal. But Manion’s a tough old mariner, and survive he does, with the last pages of Hanley’s novel set aboard the ship which has rescued Manion and the other survivors off their unnamed freighter. Alas, Hanley himself pretty much torpedoes what should have been a powerful, contemporary work of World War 2 fiction with a folksy, sailor-y brand of language that reads just as false as it would have sounded had it ever been uttered by a merchant seaman.