DRIFTED TO SEA — Brian Smith

Jack and Guy live with their mother in Dartmouth while their father is in South Africa fighting in the Boer War. It is Guy's birthday and as a treat their mother allows them to go fishing with old Joe Jervis in his boat. But when he has an accident, the two boys take his boat without permission to go fishing on their own. They drift out to sea and get lost in a fog. Little do they know what dread perils await them across the vast ocean.Arthur Lee Knight (1852 - 7 Jul 1944) was a popular author of adventure books in the late 19th and early 20th century. Around 1868 he joined the Royal Navy at the age of sixteen as a junior midshipman, where he served on the 51-gun screw frigate HMS Forte.Having been a midshipman in the navy he was familiar with life in the navy and many of the episodes in his novels - such as hunting Arab slave traders - are clearly events he experienced himself and give unique insight into the world and people in the Victorian age. His readable and often racy stories are characterized by authentic navy language of the time and evocative descriptions of seascapes, distant countries and unusual people.