The Secret Sharer
()
About this ebook
When his sailing ship is anchored in the Gulf of Siam—now Thailand—a first-time sea captain questions his ability to command. Anxious and eager for his crew to like him, he takes the first shift of the night watch. Alone in the dark, he encounters a mysterious man swimming alongside the vessel. The captain allows him to board and learns that the stranger, Leggatt, was first mate on another ship and he claims to have accidentally murdered a man.
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was born to Polish parents in the Ukraine on 3rd December 1857. He grew up surrounded by upheaval. His father was exiled to northern Russia for political activities and although they eventually returned to Poland, Conrad was orphaned by the age of 11. Subsequently he was taught by his uncle, a great influence and mentor. Leaving for Marseilles in 1874, Conrad began his training as a seaman. After an attempt at suicide, Conrad joined the British merchant navy and became a British subject in 1886. After his first novel, Almayer's Folly was published in 1895 he left the sea behind and settled down to a life of writing. Indeed, as his wife wrote in 1927, he would move only "from his table to his bed, for days and days on end". Troubled financially for many years, he faced uncomplimentary critics and an indifferent public. He finally became a popular success with Chance (1913). By the end of his life on 3rd August 1924 his status as one of the great writers of his time was assured.
Read more from Joseph Conrad
The Secret Sharer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTyphoon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Youth: A Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Agent Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Greatest Books of All Time Vol. 2 (Dream Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Duel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Modern Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Youth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart of Darkness Thrift Study Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nigger of the "Narcissus" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUNDER WESTERN EYES: An Intriguing Tale of Espionage and Betrayal in Czarist Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shadowline Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nostromo (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #50] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shadow-Line Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Typhoon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Victory: An Island Tale (Penguin Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Secret Sharer
Related ebooks
The Secret Sharer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Sharer: Including screenplay by Peter Fudakowski Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecret Sharer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Sharer and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Sharer - Joseph Conrad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea-Wolf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSome Reminiscences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChance: "It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau: By an Old Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTravellers' Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shadow-Line Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sea-Wolf: Illustrated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Against the Dangerous Tides: Daring Challenges, Thrilling Escapades and Heart-Stopping Moments (46 Sea Adventures in One Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chill of the Night: Supernatural Thrilling Stories Compilation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shadow Line A Confession Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Terror and Detection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spy in Black Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSix Months at the Cape Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sea Wolf (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIdle Days in Patagonia (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shadow-Line: "To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeach Books Anthology: The Greatest Sea Adventure Novels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spy in Black Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Danish Sweetheart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Years Before the Mast Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Anthologies For You
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Search Of Lost Time (All 7 Volumes) (ShandonPress) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kama Sutra (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Anonymous Sex Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult: Hidden Magic, Occult Truths, and the Stories That Started It All Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mark Twain: Complete Works Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ariel: The Restored Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Spanish Stories/Cuentos Espanoles: A Dual-Language Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Great Short Stories: Selections from Poe, London, Twain, Melville, Kipling, Dickens, Joyce and many more Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5First Spanish Reader: A Beginner's Dual-Language Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales, the New Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Annotated Pride and Prejudice: A Revised and Expanded Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cleaning the Gold: A Jack Reacher and Will Trent Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories Presented by the Horror Writers Association Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5FaceOff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Goodbye, Vitamin: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faking a Murderer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kink: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Creepypasta Collection: Modern Urban Legends You Can't Unread Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best American Short Stories 2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories from Suffragette City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGalaxy's Isaac Asimov Collection Volume 1: A Compilation from Galaxy Science Fiction Issues Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Writing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humorous American Short Stories: Selections from Mark Twain, O. Henry, James Thurber, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and more Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Reviews for The Secret Sharer
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Secret Sharer - Joseph Conrad
Chapter 1
On my right hand there were lines of fishing-stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple. And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one levelled floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky. Corresponding in their insignificance to the islets of the sea, two small clumps of trees, one on each side of the only fault in the impeccable joint, marked the mouth of the river Meinam we had just left on the first preparatory stage of our homeward journey; and, far back on the inland level, a larger and loftier mass, the grove surrounding the great Paknam pagoda, was the only thing on which the eye could rest from the vain task of exploring the monotonous sweep of the horizon. Here and there gleams as of a few scattered pieces of silver marked the windings of the great river; and on the nearest of them, just within the bar, the tug steaming right into the land became lost to my sight, hull and funnel and masts, as though the impassive earth had swallowed her up without an effort, without a tremor. My eye followed the light cloud of her smoke, now here, now there, above the plain, according to the devious curves of the stream, but always fainter and farther away, till I lost it at last behind the mitre-shaped hill of the great pagoda. And then I was left alone with my ship, anchored at the head of the Gulf of Siam.
She floated at the starting-point of a long journey, very still in an immense stillness, the shadows of her spars flung far to the eastward by the setting sun. At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not a sound in her—and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. In this breathless pause at the threshold of a long passage we seemed to be measuring our fitness for a long and arduous enterprise, the appointed task of both our existences to be carried out, far from all human eyes, with only sky and sea for spectators and for judges.
There must have been some glare in the air to interfere with one’s sight, because it was only just before the sun left us that my roaming eyes made out beyond the highest ridge of the principal islet of the group something which did away with the solemnity of perfect solitude. The tide of darkness flowed on swiftly; and with tropical suddenness a swarm of stars came out above the shadowy earth, while I lingered yet, my hand resting lightly on my ship’s rail as if on the shoulder of a trusted friend. But, with all that multitude of celestial bodies staring down at one, the comfort of quiet communion with her was gone for good. And there were also disturbing sounds by this time—voices, footsteps forward; the steward flitted along the maindeck, a busily ministering spirit; a hand-bell tinkled urgently under the poop-deck… .
I found my two officers waiting for me near the supper table, in the lighted cuddy. We sat down at once, and as I helped the chief mate, I said:
Are you aware that there is a ship anchored inside the islands? I saw her mastheads above the ridge as the sun went down.
He raised sharply his simple face, overcharged by a terrible growth of whisker, and emitted his usual ejaculations: Bless my soul, sir! You don’t say so!
My second mate was a round-cheeked, silent young man, grave beyond his years, I thought; but as our eyes happened to meet I detected a slight quiver on his lips. I looked down at once. It was not my part to encourage sneering on board my ship. It must be said, too, that I knew very little of my officers. In consequence of certain events of no particular significance, except to myself, I had been appointed to the command only a fortnight before. Neither did I know much of the hands forward. All