[Clare] moved to the liquor cabinet. Several bottles had broken in the roll, and she picked one up and stared at the jagged edges. She said slowly, ‘I’ve seen them do this in the movies.’
(Night of Error, page 289)
Quick summary
This is a rip-roaring, old-fashioned action adventure, with good guys and bad guys competing to follow a dead man’s cryptic clues to find mineral treasure on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. There’s a no-nonsense hero helped out by his tough ex-Army minder, a rich patron and his beautiful daughter, a ruthless adversary and his psychopath henchman, all played out against stunning South Sea scenery. What’s not to like?
Plot
Mike Trevelyan is a research oceanographer. So’s his disreputable brother Mark, but Mike has just learned his brother has died in obscure circumstances on a South Sea Island. A rough Australian named Kane calls on Mark’s wife to tell her, and then calls on Mike. He tells a long story about himself and a sailor partner, Hadley, finding Mark alone and dying of appendicitis on a small island. They fetched a doctor who operated but the wound went septic and Mark died. Kane makes his apologies and leaves… Only then does Mike remember that Mark had his appendix out when he was a boy… And there was no mention of the Swede Mark was meant to be working with, one Norgaard – what happened to him?
Mark’s effects are flown back to London, a suitcase full of clothes, notebooks and some geological samples which turn out to be manganese nodules. As Mike explains to his ex-Army mentor and friend, Geordie Wilkins (sergeant in his father’s commando during the war), these lumps of manganese and iron litter the ocean floor in their billions, generally too deep to recover, and the manganese and iron these lumps contain are easier and cheaper to mine on land.
But when the pair come back after a drink and a meal they find Mike’s flat being burgled. The burglars turn nasty, pulling knives and even a gun in the ensuing fight. Our boys just about win, the burglars fleeing in a car, but this crystallises Mike’s feeling that something is badly wrong. The gang have made off with his brother’s suitcase and all the samples – all except one, which fell under the bed – and except for Mark’s notebook, full of writing in cryptic shorthand.
At his lab the next day Mike analyses the nodule and is astonished to discover the lump is 10% cobalt – and cobalt is a vital ingredient in rocket-building. At normal concentrations of 2% or less it wouldn’t be worth bothering with. But at 10% it becomes a potentially very lucrative source. Now Mark’s notebook becomes of consuming interest: Can the shorthand be deciphered? Does it tell where this rich treasure is located? Is it near the island where Mark is supposed to have died? Why did Kane lie about his brother’s cause of death? Was foul play involved?
Usefully, Mike’s old friend Geordie owns a large yacht which he makes money out of renting and just happens to be between jobs at the moment. He says he’ll roundup some of the ‘lads’ ie the commando from the War. Mike knows his brother worked for a while for a canny Scottish mineral millionaire, Jonathan Campbell. Mike goes to see if Campbell can be persuaded to fund their trip if he’s let in on the exploitation of the cobalt. Campbell immediately sees the potential profit and agrees. And it just so happens that Campbell has a beautiful daughter, Clare, and she wants to come along on the expedition too. Handy.
The scene is set for crime and skulduggery (and a bit of snogging) leading up to a volcanic climax amid the beautiful South Sea islands.
Posthumous
According to a note at the start, Bagley wrote this novel in 1962 but put it aside to revise it, making his debut as a novelist the next year with The Golden Keel instead. After Bagley died (aged only 59, in 1983) his widow and publishers incorporated his notes into the manuscript and published it. Well done them.
Simple, clear
The novel follows the pattern of Bagley’s other novels which is that there’s a violent incident to kick start it and then a long section with the fairly peaceful making of plans, holding of conversations and eventless sailing across the Atlantic. Only in the second half are there some violent incidents and then, at the very end, things rise to a genuinely gripping and thrilling finale: they have barely discovered the location of the cobalt-rich nodules before the baddies’ vessel appears out of the mist and rams them; and both sides are still fighting it out when nature steps in with the eruption of the undersea vent which had been the source of the nodules. The resulting pandemonium makes for a gripping final thirty pages.
1962
The novel has the imaginative and moral simplicity of an earlier age. Finished in 1962 it describes characters who radiate the decency of the 1950s. It reminds me of the protagonists of Hammond Innes’ many adventure yarns or John Wyndham’s ‘cosy catastrophe’ novels from the 1950s – not the subject matter but the tone: white, middle class, decent types battling against dastardly foreigners/monsters. Even the names have a four-square cleanliness: Mike Trevelyan the hero; John Campbell the millionaire; Clare Campbell his daughter; ‘Geordie’ Wilkins the tough, reliable helper – he has a nickname because he’s working class. And the dastardly baddie is, naturally, a foreigner – Ramirez.
Environmentalism
Mildly surprising to realise that green and environmental concerns have been around since the early 1960s. This speech is put into the mouth of the industrialist Campbell:
‘For centuries people like me have been taking metals out of the earth and putting nothing back. We’ve been greedy – the whole of mankind has been greedy. As I said the other day we’ve been raping the planet.’ His voice grew in intensity. ‘Now we’ve got hold of something different and we mustn’t spoil it, like we’ve spoiled everything else that we’ve laid our greedy hands on.’ (p.259)
Fortunately mankind has learned these lessons in the past 50 years and the environment is now safe and protected for our children.
Related links
- Night of Error Wikipedia article
- Desmond Bagley Wikipedia article
- Text of Night of Error on a Russian website
- Manganese nodules Wikipedia article
Fontana paperback cover of Night of Error
Books & Boots 