Word: raft
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Even on life rafts, castaways were not wholly safe. Sharks sometimes bumped against the raft's frail bottom, knocking the occupants three or four inches into the air. Wrote one survivor: "Late in the afternoon, a shark about four feet long struck at the raft and, going right over my shoulder, slid into the raft. It took a bite out of C. One of the men and myself caught the shark by the tail and pulled him out of the raft. C. became delirious and died about four hours later...
...turned his thoughts only momentarily toward Paul Butler. "My strength," explained the five-term governor, as if to the inexperienced and the young, "has been that no one has been able to dictate to me-bankers on down to labor leaders, strip miners, truckers, the utilities and the whole raft of them...
Dumb Blonde? The rumors stopped abruptly. Marilyn had taken on a business partner named Milton Greene, a 34-year-old photographer who wears black silk shirts and looks something like an adolescent George Raft. Together they announced the formation of Marilyn Monroe Productions, with Marilyn as president. Her studio decided it was time to holler uncle. In return for Marilyn's services in four pictures to be made in the next seven years, 20th Century-Fox agreed to pay her $400,000-plus what amounted, when all the legal ribbons were untied, to a colossal bonus. And Marilyn...
...Scott (255 pp.; Dutton; $3.50), is a seaworthy adventure novel with probably the most ingeniously constructed plot in the whole castaways-on-a-raft class. The story starts with a series of cryptic messages in the agony column of a London newspaper. The key message: "Sea-Wyf: Intend to find you by publishing story of 14 weeks and Number Four. Biscuit...
These mystifying words fascinate the book's narrator, an adventure-hungry journalist who uncovers the story behind the messages. He learns about the sinking of a refugee-crammed ship out of Singapore in 1942. Four of the ship's survivors lived 14 weeks on a raft; they knew each other only by nicknames. One, "Biscuit," was an Irish bartender; another, "Bulldog," a sahib type. "Number Four" was the ship's purser, a one-legged mulatto. "Sea-Wyf" (mermaid) was a handsome young woman of mystery, and much of the story concerns her saintly attempts to impose decency...