Jordan, Humphrey Decency of Hate

Jordan’s update of Daniel Defoe’s classic castaway tale, Robinson Crusoe. Jordan sets his stage with a brief tour of England circa 1940 as seen through the eyes of his principal characters, including a ship captain, a purser, a common seaman and a landed gentry couple, each of whom has lost someone or something greatly loved to German aggression. Soon thereafter all are aboard the fictitious cargo liner LAKE TORRENS, which is torpedoed in the Indian Ocean en route from Colombo to South Africa. Those few who make it to the lifeboats are reduced further when the German U-boat which had sunk the LAKE TORRENS surfaces to strafe her survivors. After 11 days at sea, the remaining 26 passengers and crew (out of 143 originally on the ship) reach what they take to be a deserted Indian Ocean island. Subsequent exploration of the small island reveals that it isn’t as deserted as the survivors had first believed: it actually serves as a mid-ocean rendezvous for German U-boats and their supply freighters. Using the ingenuity innate to seamen, the survivors cobble together a plan to destroy one of the U-boats when it returns to the island. Here Jordan’s plot wobbles a bit: the U-boat in question just happens to be the German submarine which had torpedoed the LAKE TORRENS. The tale is given a happy ending of sorts when the British navy comes upon the scene soon after and rescues the castaways.

Despite his somewhat far-fetched climax, Jordan’s writing is generally plausible, and certainly always heart-felt. The novel often eloquently captures the courage and sheer grit displayed by the British people during the War. One passage, a several pages long description of the sensations experienced by a merchant seaman after he had taken to the cold Atlantic after his ship was sunk in convoy, is particularly compelling. Also of note is Jordan’s description of a British class system so ingrained into members of society that it is adhered to without comment once the castaways reach their tropic island.