THE SHIP IN
THE SWAMP

AND OTHER STORIES
 

BY

W. TOWNEND
 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

P. G. WODEHOUSE
 

HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
3 YORK STREET • ST. JAMES’S
LONDON S.W.i

1928

 

 

INTRODUCTION

BY

P. G. WODEHOUSE

 

IT is with some diffidence that I take typewriter in hand to inscribe these few words. The position of an author—call him Author A.—who writes an introduction to a book by another author—call him Author B.—must always be a little embarrassing. He inevitably runs the risk of seeming to claim for himself an importance and a right to speak which may be resented by a public consisting largely of cold-eyed men with tight lips and sneering eyebrows. In one way, however, he is unquestionably on velvet. He cannot be interrupted or heckled.

If I were to try to introduce these short stories of W. Townend verbally, the scene would run more or less as follows:—

Myself (starting well): It has been frequently said, gentlemen, that there is no public for a volume of short stories. I venture to think, however, that an exception will be made in favour of the book which I am presenting to your notice. The sea, gentlemen, is our heritage, and a writer who, like Mr. Townend, can bring home to us the glamour of the sea, can fill our nostrils with the salt breath of the sea, can put on paper the splendour, the mystery, the tragedy of the sea. . . .

A Voice: One moment. Just one moment.

Myself: Sir?

A Voice: Did you say the splendour, the mystery, the tragedy of the sea?

Myself: I did.

A Voice: What do you know about the splendour, the mystery, the tragedy of the sea?

Myself (weakly): That’s all right what I know about the splendour, the mystery, the tragedy of the sea. Gentlemen, I venture to say . . .

A Voice: Is it not a fact that, when you go to America, you travel first-class on the Majestic?

Myself: . . . venture to say, gentlemen, . . .

A Voice: And have breakfast in bed?

Myself: . . . to say, gentlemen, . . .

A Voice: And the only time anything tragic ever happened to you at sea was when the boat was so full you couldn’t get a table at the Ritz Café?

Myself (wisely changing the subject): But not all the stories in this volume are set among the leaping billows and flying scud of perilous seas. What, in my opinion, is the gem of the collection—I allude to the story entitled “Bolshevik”—is a tale of London’s submerged—a gripping, biting tale that reveals in a few short pages the Soul of England . . .

A Voice: Just one moment.

Myself: . . . That England, gentlemen, which never did nor never shall lie at the proud foot . . .

A Voice: What do you know about London’s submerged?

Myself: I . . .

A Voice: Is it not a fact that for years you have made your living writing about younger sons of dukes tripping over door-mats? I appeal to this audience to tear up the benches and throw them at the speaker.

[The crowd rush the platform, and I am roughly handled before being rescued by the police.]

In print, of course, one is safe from this sort of thing. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to be conscious of that Voice floating somewhere in the background and, realising my inadequacy as an introducer of a book like Townend’s, I think it best to scamp the task and hurry on. I could say—but will not—that I think “Bolshevik” one of the greatest short stories written in the last few years. I will refrain from giving my opinion of “Overseas For Flanders” and “In the Stokehold.” I will go on at once to the part of this introduction where I am on safe ground, the personal details about the author.

 

Bill Townend shared a study with me at school. We brewed tea together, shoved in the same scrum, and on one occasion put on eighty-seven together for the fourth wicket in a final house match. (I must tell you all about that innings of mine one of these days when I have more time.) Shortly after this feat, our school career ended, and Townend started out in life as a black-and-white artist, in which capacity he contributed intermittently to Punch and other papers, and illustrated one of my books.

But all this while the writer in him was popping its head out at intervals. I was doing the “By-the-Way” column on the old Globe in those days, and could always rely on him to pitch in for a day or two when a holiday seemed imperative. For several weeks, till a directors’ meeting was called and we were thrown out simultaneously, we wrote the “Answers to Correspondents” in Tit-Bits together. Everything that is any good in a novel entitled “Love Among the Chickens” was supplied by Townend. And we also collaborated—under a pseudonym—in a lurid serial in Chums. It was obviously only a question of time before a man capable of helping English Literature along to that extent would feel the urge to get going on his own account. And this happened just after Townend went to sea.

He had been to sea before, of course. Having a father who was an Army chaplain, he had been taken about the world quite a good deal: but this time he went in a tramp steamer, was nearly wrecked off the coast of Wales, messed about in the engine-room, and came back, looking perfectly foul in a stained tweed suit and a celluloid collar, resolved to write stories about men of the deep waters. His first long sea-story was “A Light For His Pipe,” and his best, “The Tramp,” published by Messrs. Jenkins last year. He has also contributed largely to American magazines.

His connection with America came about through his being offered a job out there. Some years ago, after a long separation, I met him in the Strand and immediately noticed something peculiar in his appearance and bearing. “That man,” I said to myself, “has been sorting lemons.” And so it proved. He had just returned from a long stay on a ranch in Chula Vista, California, and the only thing you do on a California ranch is sort lemons. You get up at about five, breakfast, and go out and sort lemons. Lunch at twelve-thirty, followed by a long afternoon of lemon-sorting. Then dinner, and perhaps sort a few small ones before bed-time and the restful sleep. Next morning you get up at five, breakfast, and go out and sort lemons. Lunch at . . . But you have gathered the idea, and will understand why in some of the stories written by him at that time there is a strong lemon-motive. His heroes in those days were usually young lemon-sorters who fell in love with the daughters of their employers, and the big scene was where the villain rang in a bad lemon on them and got them sacked.

This phase lasted only a brief time, and he was soon back again in his proper element, the sea. I have hinted above that I am not the best man to come to for authoritative pronouncements on the sea, but I take it a fellow, however scanty his knowledge, can make a remark if he wants to, and I maintain that nobody to-day writes better sea-stories than Old Bill Townend. Read “The Tramp.” And read the sea-stories in this book.

And, whether he is writing of sea or land, he writes as a man whose artist schooling has trained his eye to observe details. He can make you visualise a background.

Gentlemen, I trust I have not detained you over-long. We old buffers are a bit inclined to drool on when we get on a subject that interests us. What I have been trying to convey is that W. Townend, when he writes, writes with knowledge. If he lays the scene of a story in a stokehold, you may be sure that he has been in that stokehold personally, no doubt encouraging the stokers with word and gesture. When he writes of soldiers, remember that soldiers flocked about his cradle. And if lemons creep in, bear in mind that here speaks a man who was known all through California, from distant wherever-it-is to far-off I-forget-the-name-of-the-place, as “The Prince of Sorters.”

Gentlemen, I have finished. Mr. Townend will now rise to reply.

P. G. Wodehouse.

 

 

Notes:
the “By-the-Way” column: See the Globe Reclamation Project.
Love Among the Chickens: See the original edition, especially the dedication, and follow the link in the end note for more information on the various versions.
pseudonym … lurid serial in Chums: See the Chums menu on this site.
lemons … Chula Vista, California: Bill Hardy in Company for Henry had both run away to sea and picked lemons in Chula Vista, a clear tribute to Townend’s experiences.
 

Wodehouse’s letter to Townend of October 18, 1928, as reproduced in (and possibly edited for) Performing Flea:

 I’ve just got a copy of The Ship in the Swamp. I think it’s marvellous. My introduction is all wrong, of course, much too flippant. A book like that ought to have had something worthy of it. It’s the best collection of short stories that has been published since Where the Pavement Ends.