Watkins, Richard Howells "The Spy-Gazers"

Semi-comic World War 2 North Atlantic convoy tale. The Captain and Chief Engineer of the fictitious freighter MARGARET BLACKENHAM go “detecting” for a German stowaway / saboteur / spy aboard their vessel on an eastbound crossing from Halifax to Liverpool. Though neither are exactly brilliant in the detective business (the MARGIE’s 3rd Mate notes of them: “As detectives and spy busters those two were a couple of unlaid eggs”!!), by story’s end the Nazi has been captured and a mid-Atlantic disaster — the sinking of a troopship crammed with thousands of army troops — averted. Watkins wrote two other comic stories set aboard the MARGIE BLACKENHAM, both are listed above: “Court Ship” (1944) and “Morale in the Margie” (1942).