The Artful Bodger Series by John Winton
The Artful Bodger #1
We Joined The Navy
John Winton
"An intelligent man," the President of the Admiralty Interview Board tells the other members, "never makes a good naval officer. He embarrasses everyone." They nod md eighty cadets in brand new uniform are )lunged into a strange and uncomfortable world inhabited by such characters as the destroyer captain, Poggles, who anchors his ;hip with the aid of brewers' signs, and dislikes cadets; Captain Sir Douglas Mainwaring Gregson, Bart., who breeds red letters and ignores cadets; and Able Seaman Froggins, who lives a malevolent, hermit-like life in the darkness of his locker and thinks all cadets are as wet as scrubbers.Their training is more comprehensive than they expect. They scrub decks in the early morning and repel the advances of amorous Spanish barmaids by night. They paint the ship's side and play cricket against a West Indian team, the ground, the crowd and a calypso steel band. They sail boats and quell i revolution in Central America. All who love the sea and all who enjoy laughter will revel in John Winton's first book.
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The Artful Bodger #2
We Saw The Sea
John Winton
'To succeed in the Navy you've got to humour madmen,' Paul Vincent explains to Michael Hobbes when they meet again for the first time since they left H.M.S. Barsetshire, the Cadet Training Cruiser. Both have long since finished their training and are now Lieutenants just appointed to H.M.S. Carousel, a cruiser on the Far Eastern Station, an unusual ship whose shape has been changed so often that even Jane's Fighting Ships has despaired of her. In the trooper Michael and Paul come to close quarters with those strange but allied species - the Army and the R.A.F. They also meet a very old acquaintance, Carousel's new First Lieutenant, none other than Lieutenant Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R.N., known throughout the Navy as The Artful Bodger. The Bodger is still a man of resource. He demonstrates how to deal with impertinent Army officers who ask him to play deck games under a broiling afternoon sun and how to run a children's fancy dress party in circumstances which would have made a full Admiral blench. H.M.S. Carousel has a varied commission. Her officers entertain everyone from the Borneo chief who offers to shrink the Chief Steward's head free of charge to the boffins who designed Miranda (the super-intelligent secret weapon who takes charge of her own trials). Michael and Paul meet again Freddie Spink, by now the uncrowned King of Hong Kong's night life, and George Dewberry, living the life of a Shogun of Old Japan on suki yaki and explosive rice wine, surrounded by geisha girls. Meanwhile, the Bodger is on top form. He settles accounts with the American destroyer, Hiram K. Salt, arranges a Damage Control exercise which leaves its mark on the ship, and rides an elephant back to the oddest tea party he has ever attended. We Joined the Navy was perhaps the most successful first novel published, and all who read it will welcome its successor.
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The Artful Bodger #3
Down The Hatch
John Winton
We Joined The Navy and We Saw The Sea have firmly established John Winton as one of our leading humorists. His new novel plunges us into the mysterious and often hilarious life of submariners. When H.M.S. Seahorse, the Navy's newest, fastest and most expensive submarine left the builders' yard there were naturally some fierce arguments inside the Submarine Service about who was to be her first captain and consternation when a newcomer was appointed. Described by Admiral Submarines as 'some passed-over bum whom nobody's ever heard of,' he was Lieutenant Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R.N., otherwise known as The Artful Bodger. But The Bodger is undismayed. With the most variegated ship's company that ever put to sea he sets to work to give Seahorse a worthy reputation - all the way from the famous merchant city of Oozemouth, where they show the flag until they drop, to the Equator, where they carry out an original series of geophysical experiments. During the international fleet exercise "Lucky Alphonse," they grapple with the frigate captain Black Sebastian, the renegade submariner who has become the arch-fiend of anti-submarine tactics, and visit the South American republic of SanGuana d'Annuncion where The Bodger and Gotobed make motor-racing history. "This country," said the Commander-in- Chief, Rockall and Malin Approaches, after exercise "Lucky Alphonse," "is no better equipped to defeat a determined submarine attack than it is to beat off a swarm of locusts." When one of the submarines is H.M.S. Seahorse, the Admiral has a point.
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The Artful Bodger #4
All The Nice Girls
John Winton
There comes a time in every bachelor naval officer's life when he starts to lean a bit towards the champagne and the confetti. He need only lean a little way - but there's always a wench on the spot to take him up on it. This is a hard fact of life learnt by Lieutenant Dagwood Jones, R.N., when H.M.S. Seahorse, the Navy's latest submarine, arrives at a shipyard in the fine old mercantile city of Oozemouth for a long refit.Dagwood is determined not to take a wife, but the ladies of Oozemouth have other ideas - and they are not alone. Controlling events with a fine Greek hand is the genial but Machiavellian figure of the Admiralty Liaison Officer in Oozemouth, Commander Robert Bollinger Badger, D.S.C., R.N., otherwise known as The Artful Bodger. Once The Artful Bodger begins to take an interest in his affairs, Dagwood is damned - to matrimony.
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