THERE YOU ARE, BUT WHERE ARE YOU?

by Robert F. Mirvish ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 25, 1964

There you are, but where are you?"" asks Captain Lardgrass, a Hugh Herbert confusion and dizziness apparent in every syllable. Captain Lardgrass is himself aboard the merchant vessel Flying Wind, a farcially malfunctioning ship that rides in the coffin corner of Atlantic convoys during World War II. The coffin corner is the position reserved for the most expendable and least-likely-to-make-it-across ship. Typically, when the Germans fire their first torpedo at the Flying Wind it is just at the instant that the ship's engines break down and the ship stops while death passes its bow and blows up another ship instead. The ship is manned by an equally malfunctioning crew of misfits and bizarre types. Sparks, the chief radio officer, can never wake up on time for his watch; so he installs a rooster, to wake aim every dawn. When the bird dies, Sparks buys a gorilla but is too drunk to get it on board. The chief engineer, 80, is a Great Lover; the third mate is a madman who thinks he's an officer; and a mere seaman has delusions of being a counter-intelligence officer. We follow these assorted stooges through shore leaves in Algeria, England and Russia, but the jocularity is jammed into repetitious speeches and incidents that only too often don't develop into anything.

Pub Date: March 25, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1964

Categories: FICTION