“I must go down to the seas
again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by . . .” --John Masefield
“Cats at Sea” would be a shorter, but much less tantalizing book title than
“Seafurrers: The Ships’ Cats Who Lapped and Mapped the World; An Incidental
History,” the name of a new book I’ve just finished. It’s fun reading, packed with photos, illustrations
and shaded boxes in its 38 “incidents” or short chapters, about cats on ships, where
they served as major pest-controllers (anti-rats!), pets and mascots, as well
as occasional stowaways.
Author Philippa Sandall shares the honors with able sea cat “Bart,”
whose paw print authenticates the Preface he wrote and who enlisted both Sandall,
to serve as the book’s scribe, and Ad Long, to handle its notable illustrations.
Bart must have motivated them well; they
did a great job.
Start with the cover, featuring a grizzled seafarer -- cap atilt on his head and pipe in his mouth: a
cat! So make that a grizzled “Seafurrer,”
please, while you wonder how long it took for one word to morph into the other.
That, “Whiskerpedia” and other such coined
words lighten the text even more.
Stories about ships’ cats really couldn’t fill a book, but the related
(well, mostly related) info -- about rats,
flying fish, wreck rights, hardtack and designated divers -- rounds out the
volume very nicely. Together with nuggets
of cat lore, painless chunks of maritime history are easy to assimilate. Sandall did her homework, only occasionally including
more than a reader could reasonably care to know. (One example: specs on Churchill and Roosevelt’s
1941 Atlantic Charter)
Every incident tells about a ship’s cat, giving the vessel’s name, date
of voyage and ID of any significant (human) crew members. That’s Sandall’s part, followed each time by
an “According to Bart” section, in which the cat may pooh-pooh the story, but always
adds info. Finally, there may be an “Incidentally”
box, telling still more -- for instance, about the beginning of picture
postcards, one of which featured “Thomas Whiskers, USN,” a hospital ship’s cat.
Timing for release of “Seafurrers” suggests it’s a beach read, though ideally
of course it would be a ship read. But anywhere you decide to dive in, you’ll
like it.
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What a delightful read this will be!
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