Joseph Conrad · 1902 · sea

Joseph Conrad's 1902 novella. The steamer Nan-Shan carries two hundred Chinese labourers home from Siam with their savings in camphor-wood chests, under a captain with no imagination whatever. Warned that he can go round the storm, Captain MacWhirr reasons that going round would take longer, and takes his ship straight into it.

1. 1
   Bangkok

   The Nan-Shan loads at Siam with two hundred coolies going home after years in the mines, each with his wages in a chest - and MacWhirr, a man of no conversation and less imagination, takes her to sea.

2. 2
   The South China Sea

   The barometer falls further than anyone aboard has seen, and MacWhirr - having read in a book that a storm can be avoided by going round it, and calculated the extra coal - decides that the direct course is the correct one.

3. 3
   Fuzhou

   The ship comes through, barely, her decks swept and the passengers' money hopelessly mixed together below - and MacWhirr, who has no capacity for reflection, divides it out equally and thinks no more about it.