Saved by the Lifeboat
1869
The wind howls in the chimney with wild fury. Slates are swept from rooftops. The mighty sea roars. On a dark November afternoon, not many years ago, Captain Boyns sits smoking his pipe, gazing anxiously at the fire. He knows what is coming. A call for the lifeboat. R.M. Ballantyne's rip-roaring Victorian adventure opens in the fishing village of Covelly, where a furious storm has turned the English Channel into a killing ground. When a ship breaks apart off the coast, Captain Boyns and his son Harry rush into the teeth of the tempest, launching their lifeboat against waves that seem determined to destroy them. Meanwhile, in the harbor office of shipowner John Webster, a different story unfolds: a man so obsessed with profit that he refuses to properly equip his vessels. His ship, the Water Lily, is going down. And he is about to witness, firsthand, the consequences of his greed. Part thrilling sea rescue, part moral fable, Saved by the Lifeboat pulses with Victorian energy and purpose. Ballantyne wrote it to champion the brave volunteers who manned Britain's lifeboats, and to prick the conscience of a society that valued cargo over sailors. The result is a story that sweeps you into dangerous waters and asks what we owe to one another.
