Alistair Maclean
The Lonely Sea
Collected Short Stories
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London SE1 9GF
This eBook edition 2009
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1985
then in paperback by Fontana 1986
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1985
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey.
Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
City of Benares, The Arandora Star, Rawalpindi, The Meknes, The Jervis Bay and Lancastria published by the Sunday Express 1960.
Rewards and Responsibilities of Success, The Black Storm and The Good Samaritan published by the Glasgow Herald 1982, 1995 and 1996.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006172772
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007289332
Version: 2020-10-22
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Contents
MacHinery and the Cauliflowers
McCrimmon and the Blue Moonstones
Postscript: Rewards and Responsibilities of Success
Three hours gone, Mr MacLean, three hours—and never a word of the lifeboat.
You can imagine just how it was. There were only the four of us there—Eachan, Torry Mor, old Grant, and myself. Talk? Never a word among the lot of us, nor even the heart of a dram—and there on the table, was a new bottle of Talisker, and Eachan not looking for a penny.
We just sat there like a lot of stookies, Seumas Grant with his expressionless face and yon wicked old pipe of his bubbling away, and the rest of us desperately busy with studying the pattern of the wallpaper. Listening to the screech of the wind, we were, and the hail like chuckies battering against the windows of the hotel. Dhia! What a night that was! And the worst of it was, we couldn’t do a thing but wait. My, but we were a right cheery crowd.
I think we all gave a wee bit jump when the telephone rang. Eachan hurried away and was back in a moment beaming all over. One look at yon great moonface