Victor Canning: characters, themes and locations

albatross (Atlantic Company)

See Coleridge.

alpargatas (Atlantic Company)

Rope-soled sandals. Carlotta Manville is wearing a pair on the lifeboat.

Angel over St. Jude's (Atlantic Company)

The captain calls out "The Angel over St. Jude's; it is the end" as he is dying. "Just before the end of the last war they say an angel showed in the sky over the steeple of St. Jude’s Church at Plymouth. It’s only a story..." Roberts tells them.

Annette (Atlantic Company)

The maid who attends Mrs Knight on board the Olantigh. She also sleeps with Mr Knight, and arouses lascivious looks from John Chinn.

Ansford, Elizabeth (Atlantic Company)

Extra passenger who comes aboard at Para. She and Arthur Buchan take to each other. Aged 23, and returning for patriotic motives.

Arabella (Atlantic Company)

Pet mouse belonging to the seaman Roberts. He is defensive about threats to eat it.

Atlantic Pilgrimage (Atlantic Company)

The title that Arthur Buchan gives the book he is writing during the voyage of the Olantigh.

Avacataca (Atlantic Company)

Name of a steamship the survivors see. Sylvester recognises her as a ship he had sailed on.

Beach Thomas, Sir William (Atlantic Company)

Writes a favourabke review of Arthur Buchan's book Fenlandia for the Observer.

Bellew (Atlantic Company)

Arthur Buchan's colleague at March Grammar School. He persuades Buchan to change careers after the success of his book Fenlandia.

Benenden (Atlantic Company)

Town in Kent. Chalmand's farm is in the area since "With a good pair of field-glasses I could make out the time on Benenden church tower from here." (p. 6) Canning himself was living in Benenden at the time.

Beyer, Constantin (Atlantic Company)

Name of the captain of the Gabrielle.

Bligh, Peter (Atlantic Company)

Nineteen-year-old sailor who is part of the lifeboat's crew. "He had run away from a builder’s office to sea and was now on his way home to get back his job if he could."

Boswell, James (1740-1795) (Atlantic Company)

Biographer of Samuel Johnson. "We've got a Boswell", says Carlotta Manville when she sees Buchan writing in his notebook.

Buchan, Arthur (Atlantic Company)

Narrator and central figure in the book. He is the son of a nurseryman from Cranbrook in Kent. He becomes a schoolteacher and, having written a book about the Fens, is offered a post as personal tutor to the son of George Knight, a shipowner, as he takes him on a voyage aboard his ship, the Olantigh. The ship is sunk by a U-boat and the passengers undergo an ordeal in lifeboats which forms the substance of the story.

Buenos Ayres (Atlantic Company)

Port where the Olantigh is detained for engine repairs.

Campales (Atlantic Company)

The Cavin Line shipping agent in Para who has promised a passage to England on the Olantigh to the four refugees.

Cape San Roque (Atlantic Company)

Cape north of Rio where the Olantigh diverts to Para at the mouth of the Amazon.

Cape Town (Atlantic Company)

See Table Mountain.

Cape Verde Islands (Atlantic Company)

Portuguese islands of the west coast of Africa, a port of call during the voyage.

Cardiff (Atlantic Company)

The Olantigh sails from Cardiff.

Carlotta (Atlantic Company)

See Manville, George and Carlotta.

Carlyle, Thomas (Atlantic Company)

"I found [Gregory] one afternoon in his cabin reading Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution. It was a copy of mine which he had borrowed." Buchan has the same copy with him in his attaché case on the lifeboat.
“How do you like him?” I asked, thinking of Carlyle’s mannerisms.
Gregory looked up, his large eyes dancing with real pleasure. “It’s like trying to do a jig-saw puzzle on a switchback, sir.”

Cavin Steamship Company of Cardiff (Atlantic Company)

Shipping firm of which George Knight is a director. They own the Olantigh.

Chalmand (Atlantic Company)

Arthur Buchan's brother-in-law. Buchan recuperates on his farm after his ordeal at sea. It is never clear whether Chalmand is a surname or a first name.

Chinn, John (Atlantic Company)

Name of the seaman who takes command of the lifeboat after the wreck of the Olantigh and the death of the captain. His continuing feud with the shipping-line owner George Knight forms the substance of the narrative.

Christmas (Atlantic Company)

Name of the steward who serves the few passengers aboard the Olantigh and is with them in the lifeboat.

Coleridge (Atlantic Company)

When they see their first albatross at Tristan da Cunha, Gregory shouts verses of Coleridge at the bird, presumably The Ancient Mariner.

Cranbrook, Kent (Atlantic Company)

Birthplace of Arthur Buchan

Dakar (Atlantic Company)

Capital of Senegal in West Africa, port of call on the Olantigh's voyage.

Daniels (Atlantic Company)

Young crew member on the lifeboat.

Donne, John (1572-1631) (Atlantic Company)

Buchan remembers these lines by Donne when he sees Chinn stretch his arms out like a cross.
Who can deny mee power, and liberty
To stretch mine armes, and mine owne Crosse to be?
from the poem "The Crosse".

Empire Service (Atlantic Company)

British short wave radio station audible on board the Olantigh on which they hear Chamberlain's declaration of war.

Esavian (Atlantic Company)

Knight has an Esavian calendar on his wall. Esavian House is the headquarters of Thames and Hudson, so I presume this is a brand name of theirs.

Fenlandia (Atlantic Company)

Title of Arthur Buchan's book about the Fenland countryside. Its success enables him to give up his school post and take a job as tutor on a sea voyage.

Fernandel (1903-1971) (Atlantic Company)

French comic actor. His photograph is displayed in the crew quarters of the Gabrielle.

Forster, Albert (1902-1952)

In Rio de Janeiro Knight and Buchan hear of the "declamations of Forster at Danzig." Forster was the Gauleiter of Danzig and urged the re-union of Danzig with Germany. This became the pretext for Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939.

fylfot (Atlantic Company)

"... we saw the German emblem, the crooked cross, break out over the submarine. It floated there like a fragment of a dream. We could not believe it. But it was the truth. Dancing in the wind it provoked our eyes, the black fylfot of the antiquaries, the black gammadion whose origin is as mixed and uncertain as the origin of the German race itself." Fylfot and gammadion are alternative words for swastika.

Gabrielle (Atlantic Company)

"... a three-masted schooner. She was registered at Toulouse and, when we met her, was carrying a cargo of merino wool for that port." The Olantigh survivors come across her, abandoned but still floating since her cargo of wool has expanded and filled the holes in the hull.

gammadion (Atlantic Company)

See fylfot

Gregory (Atlantic Company)

See Knight, Gregory

Griffin (Atlantic Company)

Inn in March where the illustrator stays while he makes the drawings for the book Fenlandia. Canning presumably had a comparable experience when his own book, Everyman's England, was illustrated by Leslie Stead, who may well have visited him in March. Everyman's England contains one chapter on March.

Hancock (Atlantic Company)

Captain of the Olantigh He dies from shrapnel wounds after one night in the lifeboat.

Hettner, Bernard (Atlantic Company)

Extra passenger taken on board at Para, British but of German and Scandinavian origin. He turns out to be an alcoholic and risks the lives of all the others when he steals the lifeboat. He is killed by John Chinn.

Hitler, Adolf (Atlantic Company)

See War.

Jews (Atlantic Company)

“The Germans and the Jews,” said Hettner, “they have troubled man since before Caesar. One a race without a country and the other a nation which knows it has no true race, that it is a mixture. The problem is as old as Jerusalem and as indissoluble as the Alps." Canning's characters are aware of the persecution of the Jews. There is no trace in Canning's work of any anti-Semitism, though he has little to say on the topic.

Knight, George Ransome (Atlantic Company)

Shipowner and central character of the novel. After the sinking of the Olantigh, he takes the same lifeboat as Buchan, and clashes with the seaman John Chinn. "To me George Knight was a man whom at first I liked, whom later I understood, and whom now I would walk a mile to avoid" says Arthur Buchan (p. 7).

Knight, Gregory (Atlantic Company)

Son of George Knight and the boy that Arthur Buchan is hired to tutor. He is sent home from Rio so is not among the lifeboat party. "He was about fourteen, pale and delicate, but his nature was robust and open. He had a keen, inquiring mind, and I felt that he was cautious in his speech and manner before his father as though he feared that some indiscreet word or action would give him away and lay him open to an attack which he always feared. This, of course, may be pure fancy in a boy, but the feeling was too strong to be ignored, and I imagine that Knight himself was aware that this boy was an alien." (p. 10)

Leblanc, Maurice (1864-1941) (Atlantic Company)

Author of romans policiers. Favourite reading matter of the captain of the Gabrielle, who has Les dents du tigre, which Buchan takes home with him.

Luckner, Felix von (1881-1966) (Atlantic Company)

German sailor, hero of a series of raids with his ship the See Adler, and an escape from New Zealand in 1917. Bernard Hettner suggests that the new war will not be against chivalrous opponents like von Luckner.

Manville, George and Carlotta (Atlantic Company)

Extra passengers who come aboard at Para. George dies during the submarine attack. The flirtatious Carlotta survives on the lifeboat.

March (Atlantic Company)

Town in Cambridgeshire. Arthur Buchan teaches at the Grammar School, and writes Fenlandia, a book about the local countryside. March's main source of employment at the time was the railway marshalling yards, and Buchan lodges with a shunter.

Martin Rattler (Atlantic Company)

Boys' adventure story set in South America by R.M.Ballantyne, published in 1858. It had been a favourite of Arthur Buchan's and he therefore regrets not having the chance to see the Amazon when the Olantigh is diverted home.

Masters, Winnie (Atlantic Company)

Peter Bligh's girlfriend. He carries a photograph of her which gets shown to everybody on the boat.

Millet (Atlantic Company)

Crew member on the lifeboat. "Millet was a rat. He was undersized, his skin a pale, mushroom colour, his head big, his eyes large and watery, and he would sit for hours gnawing at his nails and quicks so that some of his fingers bled with soreness."

North Street (Atlantic Company)

Arthur Buchan gives his address as 83 North Street, March. Victor Canning himself had lived at 35 North Street in 1934/5.

Olantigh (Atlantic Company)

The cargo boat on which Arthur Buchan sails with the Knight family. "She was about five thousand tons, her hull painted black with a wide topping of white. Her funnel was black with a white band near the top, and against the white stood out the owners’ flag, green with a yellow star. She had a high forward deck, her bows bulging and rather froglike when seen from before. They rose in a leaning cliff of plates which gave a tremendous impression of power. After the forward deck came a long, deep well-deck which carried the hatches to the main holds, and over whose span soared the white and faintly modernistic superstructure of the bridge and control rooms. Aft of the bridge works were the engine-room and another hold, and then came the raised stern deck which carried the passenger accommodation. She had a bull-like, thrusting appearance, a sturdy, forceful, blustering way which attracted me immensely. She was a good ship, everyone who sailed in her liked her. She had no tricks, no bad manners, and responded well to proper handling. She had six officers and a crew of twenty-four."
Olantigh is the name of a Kent village adjacent to Crundale, the village where Canning lived for a time in 1936.

Para (Atlantic Company)

Northern state of Brazil at the mouth of the Amazon where the Olantigh diverts to take on extra cargo and picks up its troublesome refugee passengers.

Pernod (Atlantic Company)

"Pernod—nearest thing you can get these days to absinthe. It’s putting blood in my veins again" says the alcoholic Hettner on board the Gabrielle.

Rastine de Trèves (Atlantic Company)

Name of the dog belonging to a crew member of the Gabrielle whose photograph is pinned up.

Rio de Janeiro (Atlantic Company)

Port from which George Knight sends his wife and family to New York because of rumours of war, remaining on the Olantigh himself.

River Plate (Atlantic Company)

River of Buenos Ayres

Roberts (Atlantic Company)

Crew member on the lifeboat. Undistinguished and willing.

Robinson, William Albert and Gerbault, Alain (Atlantic Company)

Authors of books on sailing from the 1930s. Buchan has read them, "not comprehending their technicalities".

Rodrigues Alves (Atlantic Company)

Brazilian ship which rescues the survivors of the Olantigh close to Dutch Guiana.

Scellet (Atlantic Company)

Second mate of the Olantigh who shows Buchan round Rio. He is not in the lifeboat with Buchan, so must be presumed to have drowned.

See Adler (Atlantic Company)

See Luckner.

September crisis (Atlantic Company)

"I had few thoughts about war. My own personal experiences were too coloured with thoughts of the coming travel to give me much time for European affairs. In a history master this, I confess, was deplorable. During the previous September crisis I had been keenly following events, but since then my interest had stalled and dived into other channels." The crisis of September 1938 was the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain's visit to Munich.

St. Jude's (Atlantic Company)

See Angel

submarine (Atlantic Company)

See U-boat

Sylvester (Atlantic Company)

Crew member on the lifeboat. He "was about thirty-four, fair-haired, broad-shouldered and lethargic, an uncommunicative fellow who was a deck-hand but seemed a cut above the ordinary sea-going type, and of him I gathered that he was a rolling stone, never keeping a job long, pressed always by the urge to move on and yet never seeming to be stirred by his roving life." He is killed by a shark when, shortly before the rescue, he jumps overboard in a mad fit.

Table Mountain (Atlantic Company)

Prominent feature of Cape Town in Soth Africa, where the Olantigh calls. "You can describe Table Mountain to a man who has never seen it, but it will never live as Table Mountain in his mind until the day he actually sees it, and so it was with the hundreds of other places, native huts and laughing, curious child-like peoples, solemn chiefs, feathered and robed, and port officials, stranded white men who looked untidy, hot and resolutely unhappy."

Tenerife (Atlantic Company)

Buchan observes the maid Annette when she goes ashore at Tenerife and sees John Chinn looking at her lasciviously.

Tristan da Cunha (Atlantic Company)

The Olantigh delivers mail and supplies, and the passengers go ashore there.

U-boat (Atlantic Company)

“We had a Navy in the last war,” observed Scellet, “but for all that we nearly went under in 1917. The U-boat takes a lot of beating—”
“But we beat the U-boats in the end, didn’t we? No, the Navy will be there, all the power and might of England, all the traditional hocus-pocus of battleships and sailors which people look upon as show and an annoying expense during peace, but without which they would starve during war-time. In peacetime any fighting service is a show and an expense—”
“The U-boat of the next war may be a very different affair from the U-boat of the last war,” said the captain. “Not even a nation governed by wicked fools would be so entirely lost to common sense that it would go into a war without some hope of winning.” They were the words of a man who did not make the mistake of underestimating the powers which would be loosed in Europe and on the seas if war came.
On the day of the outbreak of war, Hettner says: “I know the Germans, and their thoroughness is not a legend, a myth. It’s a fact. There’ll be submarines and surface raiders at their stations in every ocean of the globe at this moment.” He is immediately proved right when, the next day, they encounter a submarine. "The submarine lay abreast of us, a long, grey-black monster that wallowed rather sluggishly in the tossing troughs. She was bigger and looked more dangerous than anything I had ever imagined. The sea was running so high that at times all we could see was the blunt stump of her tower." The submarine sinks the Olantigh with gunfire when the captain tries to outrun it.

war (Atlantic Company)

"The war, in its own way, has already done a lot to me." says Arthur Buchan at the beginning of the book. The characters are very aware of the threat of war from their departure onwards. "It was the world before the war, the world of January 1939, when a false hope clouded all minds and we lived in a clamouring, wavering tide of respite and fear and, over all, a desperate, wilful optimism." Knight tells Buchan on their first day at sea, "but you’re luckier still to be getting away from Europe, Buchan. You see—there’ll be war this year, and the first phase of that war will be bloody and horrible." Later Buchan comments: "In the South Atlantic war seemed impossible. All those rumbles would die down and we should have had our anxiety and worry for nothing. It was surprising how many people believed like that in those days, how many people refused to recognize that the truth was unpleasant, that the runaway beast had to be curbed if any real peace were to issue from that clamour of voices which was Europe. I was one of those people and I had no excuse, I had all the example of history to show me that Europe was once again sliding into the abyss. I even had Gregory’s own comment drawn from his reading of Carlyle—that any inner revolution, any social upheaval in a country, seemed always to lead to an expansive, imperialist movement beyond the country’s frontiers. ... . And now here was Hitler, spreading the sword beyond the German frontiers, and behind him, a grey, not fully comprehended shadow, the peasant bulk of Stalin threatening the same destiny."
In Rio de Janeiro we read "It was hard to escape the atmosphere and conviction of the people one spoke to that there would be war. German troop concentrations on the Polish border, troops moving through Slovakia and the tension in Danzig … the febrility of those days is hard to capture now, even at such short a distance in time. It seemed incongruous, that babble of war, against a South American background. War went well enough with the South American background, but it was the war of sporadic revolutions, colourful generals and apathetic peons, war in that continent was Napoleonic, a formal array of bright uniforms, some honour left in it."

Wisbech (Atlantic Company)

Town in Cambridgeshire. George Knight knows the Fens because he was brought up in Wisbech. The town featured in an earlier Canning novel, Fly Away Paul.