A Restoration Admiral

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32234, 28 February 1970, Page 4

A Restoration Admiral

Man Of War. By Richard Ollard. Hodder and Stoughton. 231 pp. Index. Sir Robert Holmes, companion of Prince Rupert during the English Civil War and later a Restoration Admiral, has been dismissed by historians as the epitome of the swaggering, roystering and corrupt kind of courtierofficer whose indiscipline was the curse of the Services in his time. Samuel Pepys, with whom Holmes clashed over naval appointments to the point where Pepys feared he would be called on to fight a duel, reinforces this image. He describes seeing Holmes in church “in his gold-laced suit, at which I was troubled because of the old business which he attempted on my wife.” The impetuous actions of Holmes in destroying Dutch trading posts in West Africa have been blamed for dragging SCIENCE FICTION Off Centre. By Damon Knight. Gollancz. 192 PPWith Robert Sheckley, Damon Knight is one of the best short story writers in science fiction. But they have little else in common. Damon Knight is primarily interested in people, and his touch is surer than most in a field notorious for its general superficiality of characterisation. There are eight stories in this new collection, and all are good examples of Mr Knight’s careful craftsmanship. “Be My Guest,” a novelette-length story of small, yammering voices, ghostly apparitions, and a man’s flight into degradation, is the best here. “Off Centre" is entertainment to be recommended The Demon Breed. By James H. Schmitz. Macdonald. 151 pp. Although James Schmitz's latest novel is seriously deficient in certain important respects, it is still one of the most gripping, science fiction adventure yarns that, this reviewer has read for some considerable time. On the surface it is colourful, brash, and very exciting, following the well-tried formula of one person (a woman in this case) singlehandedly fighting and almost destroying an alien invasion force. On this level, the only real mistake made is in the inclusion of the final, superfluous and anticlimatic chapter. What is distasteful in “The Demon Breed” is its almost fanatical homocentricity. its blindly held assumption that man is a magnificent, strong-willed superbeing who is always right, and one who. when cornered will fight like the demons of hell. This self-glorification at the expense of different beings bears too close a parallel to contemporary social realities to be taken lightly. But this criticism should not be taken to deny that this is a tremendously entertaining work, if read without too much thought.

England into war and the poet Andrew Marvell dismissed him as “the cursed beginner of the two Dutch wars.” In this biography Mr Ollard attempts to put straight the record. Holmes emerges as a superb professional navi I officer, concerned to create a formidable military weapon from the confusions which beset the English fleet during the Civil War. Little excuse is made for his aggressive behaviour towards the Dutch in Africa in a time of nominal peace, though his deeds there were so exciting as to almost justify themselves: but much praise is given to Holmes’s greatest triumph, once war came—the “Bonfire" of 1665 in which a small English detachment led by Holmes burned more than 100 enemy ships and the town of Westerschelling in what must have been an almost perfect commando raid on the Dutch coast. Mr Ollard has made good use of the materials available on his hero and he has wisely resisted any attempt to fill out with conjecture those periods of Holmes’s life about which, littke information survives. Thus,, the early years are known only in the. barest outline from Holmes’s birth-in Ireland until after his period of service as a junior officer with the Cavaliers. As the record expands in the later years, Mr Ollard has attempted to assess Holmes as an individual, and the impact on the times made by officers of whom he was typical: “He lived and fought and argued and acted and wrote and spoke in such a way as to influence the course of events in his own-time and to help shape the institutions and to colour the ethos of a great age that was to follow. And he did what he did both because, he chose to do so and because it offered him a living and wide prospects of reward,” writes Mr Ollard. Holmes, says the author, was typical of the men on whom England was to depend for her security for moire than 100 years: he is typical als P °t the image which foreigners of the time had of England. It is not always a gentle or cautious image, but as this author expounds it. neither Is it an image to be ashamed of.

Those who already know the crew of the Dulcibella, and have read of their adventures on the Frisian coast, will welcome this opportunity of renewing the friendship: those who do not know Davies and Carruthers should lose no time in making their acquaintance. This new edition of THE RIDDLE OF THE SANDS? by Erskine Childers (London J. M. Dent and Sons. New York, E. P. Dutton and Company) has Illustrations in black and white by Charles Mozley. The book won tremendous popularity, especially among yachtsmen, when it was first published in 1903. It was a good story then and remains so today, moon landings and the nuclear age notwithstanding.