Bannister’s Chart

By Antony Trew

It seemed to be just another so-called ‘adventure cruise’ among the tropical islands of the Indian Ocean –

the ‘adventure’ being little more than the delivery of mail and stores by Captain Cassidy’s coaster, the Sunglow, the loading of mangrove poles and copra, and coping with passengers’ complaints about food and ventilation. But this was to be a very different cruise from all the others…

Cyclones are almost unheard of in those seas in September, yet it was a cyclone that engulfed and battered the decrepit little coaster and tested passengers and crew to the uttermost. Was it one of Sunglow’s apparently humdrum passengers who drove the knife into the jugular vein of the mysterious Dada? And the passengers lost overboard in the night – was it accident, suicide, or something more sinister?

This is a sea story with a difference…

Antony Trew has spent many years at sea. During the 1939-45 war he served with the Mediterranean Fleet in the 22nd Anti-Submarine Group, and in the Western Approaches where he commanded the destroyer Walker, principally on Russian convoys. He was awarded the DSC. He retired recently as Director-General of the Automobile Association in South Africa and now lives in England.