Test at Sea

THE GOOD SHEPHERD (310 pp.)--C. S. Forester--Little, Brown ($3.95).

This book again proves that Cecil Scott Forester is the best living writer about the sea. It is a war novel (first published in LIFE) that neither whines nor rails nor waves flags, but sticks tersely to its theme. Its hero, Commander George Krause, U.S.N., is indeed a good shepherd. His flock is a convoy of 37 merchant ships zigzagging across the Atlantic in 1942. To herd them safely to harbor in England, Krause has only four escort vessels, one of which he personally commands. Almost as serious as his weakness in ships is his own inexperience; this is his first taste of war, although he is an Annapolis man with 20 years of routine duty behind him. The serious-minded son of a Lutheran minister, unlucky in marriage, he is now to be tested as life has never tested him before.

When the submarine wolf pack strikes, Krause's true weapons are training, character and a sense of duty that overcome fatigue and everything the subs can throw at him. For 48 terrible hours he fights his destroyer and directs as exciting a battle as Author Forester's famed Horatio Hornblower ever experienced under sail. In the desperate game of hit-and-run, Krause is frequently fooled by the U-boat commanders, but as he fights, he learns. Ships are torpedoed and men are left to drown because to try to save them would mean to endanger more lives. Moral anguish, physical suffering and fatigue bring Krause to the edge of senselessness. The commander's personal battle, fought on the borderline of human endurance, is even more impressive than the naval action. Author Forester has written a war novel whose real hero is the concept of duty.

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