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| Painting by N. C. Wyeth, father of Andrew Wyeth |
Moonfleet is a tale which has been adapted many times for television and radio. The book itself, though, deserves to be read. Whatever age you are you won't be disappointed.
The book's author, J. Mead Faulkner, was really just a part-timer, writing only three books in his lifetime. His day job, though, took him to the top of the tree, or yardarm, as the Chairman of Armstrong Whitworth Co., one of Britain's major armaments manufacturers; a post he held throughout the duration of the First World War.
He also reached some pretty dizzying heights physically, measuring 6' 9" in his socks.
Moonfleet draws upon memories of Falkner's childhood in the Purbecks and weaves a colourful yarn of smugglers and smuggling.
The story begins in the small hamlet of Fleet, near Abbotsbury, which stands next to the large expanse of brackish water behind the Chesil Bank also named the Fleet.
In the following excerpt the book's young hero, John Trenchard, finds his way into the burial vault of the notorious Blackbeard.
He is forced to hide when he is disturbed by a group of villagers using the vault for their clandestine smuggling activities...
'Sitting where I was, I lit my candle once more, and then clambered across that great coffin which, for two hours or more, had been a mid-wall of partition between me and danger. But to get out of the niche was harder than to get in; for now that I had a candle to light me, I saw that the coffin, though sound enough to outer view, was wormed through and through, and little better than a rotten shell. So it was that I had some ado to get over it, not daring either to kneel upon it or to bring much weight to bear with my hand, lest it should go through. And now having got safely across, I sat for an instant on that narrow ledge of the stone shelf which projected beyond the coffin on the vault side, and made ready to jump forward on to the floor below. And how it happened I know not, but there I lost my balance, and as I slipped the candle flew out of my grasp. Then I clutched at the coffin to save myself, but my hand went clean through it, and so I came to the ground in a cloud of dust and splinters; having only got hold of a wisp of seaweed, or a handful of those draggled funeral trappings which were strewn about this place. The floor of the vault was sandy; and so, though I fell crookedly, I took but little harm beyond a shaking; and soon, pulling myself together, set to strike my flint and blow the match into a flame to search for the fallen candle. Yet all the time I kept in my fingers this handful of light stuff; and when the flame burnt up again I held the thing against the light, and saw that it was no wisp of seaweed, but something black and wiry. For a moment, I could not gather what I had hold of, but then gave a start that nearly sent the candle out, and perhaps a cry, and let it drop as if it were red-hot iron, for I knew that it was a man's beard.'
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