cover image MUTINY ON THE GLOBE: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock

MUTINY ON THE GLOBE: The Fatal Voyage of Samuel Comstock

Thomas Farel Heffernan, . . Norton, $24.95 (280pp) ISBN 978-0-393-04163-7

In yet another title about the Globe, Heffernan (Stove by a Whale) presents the violent story of Samuel Comstock, clever ruffian, cunning trouble-maker and all around hooligan, who led a bloody mutiny aboard the Nantucket whaler. After dispatching the captain and officers of the ship, Comstock's delusions of setting up a personal empire in the Marshall Islands (and conscripting the natives into his personal army) met an apex in madness, and the 21-year-old was gunned down by fellow mutineers shortly after reaching the Mili Atoll. In the ensuing power vacuum, six sailors fled to the ship, abandoning the other nine to face the irate natives; seven were killed while the remaining two were kept as "pets." Upon learning the fate of the whaler, the U.S. Navy mounted an unprecedented rescue mission—and set a standard for policing the waters of the South Pacific. Historian Heffernan wonderfully revives the mutiny and its aftermath in this dynamic, tightly edited record that never shows the toil of labor. Working from a wealth of primary source materials (among others, varying accounts from Comstock's brothers, the two marooned mariners and senior Lt. Hiram Paulding, who helped lead the rescue), the author balances the narrative with well-placed insights and quips, keeping the action relentless and oftentimes terrifying. (Heffernan's description of mayhem Comstock causes in the Chilean port of Valparaiso is an unexpected diversion on a par with the violence of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.) With exhaustive appendixes and notes; illus. and maps not seen by PW. (Apr.)