The Rescue (1920)

The Rescue, A Romance of the Shallows is a 1920 novel by Joseph Conrad. It is one of his works contained in what is now sometimes called the Lingard Trilogy, a group of novels based on Conrad's experience as mate on the steamer Vidar. Although it was the last of the three novels to be published, after Almayer's Folly (1895) and An Outcast of the Islands (1896), the events related in the novel precede those. The story follows Captain Tom Lingard, the recurring protagonist of The Lingard Trilogy, who was on his way to help a native friend regain his land when he falls in love with a married woman whose yacht he saves from foundering.

Literary and historical background

Literary

In the 1920 Malay Edition of Joseph Conrad's collected works, the publisher Doubleday, Page and Company featured "Author's Notes" at the start of each novel—in his note for The Rescue, Conrad shows great gratitude for its critical reception and gives background on the project and its 20-year hiatus. While initially he had "the contents and the course of" The Rescue clear in his mind, he had doubts about his ability to effectively execute the story. Therefore, he set it aside in 1898 and moved on to write The Nigger of Narcissus, Lord Jim, and Heart of Darkness before he resumed working on the novel in 1918. He admits that he wrestled with its abandonment at first but confesses that the momentum of other pieces made it easier and easier to leave this difficult work behind - and yet he never fully "lost sight" of The Rescue which remained "a dark speck in the misty distance" as the years and pages "stretched wide between" him and his deserted project. In the summer of 1918, as The Great War raged toward its conclusion and the Spanish Flu epidemic began, Conrad returned to his long abandoned project. It was "sentiment," he explains, that drove him back to the work, and though he anticipated the "pains and hazards of that return," he saw, as it "loomed" larger on his approach, that it had "an air of expectant life" and describes the characters' "familiar faces" as knowing he was "bound to come back to them." True to his themes, Conrad rescued the ship he abandoned, and 24 years after he began writing, the title was published in 1920.

Plot summary

Part I. The Man and the Brig

Young Tom Lingard is the owner and captain of a sailing ship, the Lightning which lies becalmed at night, somewhere in the Malayan archipelago. With his chief mate Shaw he discusses the problems that women can cause. Suddenly they are approached by a search party in a boat seeking help for a yacht which has become stranded on mudflats on a nearby island.

Carter, the commander of the boat is interrogated in rather a hostile and suspicious manner which leaves him puzzled, but his boat is put in tow. When they reach the island Lingard handles his brig skilfully, but it transpires that he was heading for the island himself. He fires a warning shot into the interior, then joins the stricken yacht.

Part II. The Shore of Refuge

The story backtracks to explain how Lingard first came into contact with the Wajo leader Hassim, and their instant bond of friendship. Lingard goes to visit Hassim, but is warned off by Jaffir, who reports that Hassim is now a fugitive in a civil war. But Lingard takes a long boat on shore to rescue him, and the sortie is a success.

Lingard begins trading in arms and saving money to help Hassim in the re-conquest of Wajo. He is followed around by Jorgenson, an old sea-captain whose life has been ruined. When Lingard explains his plans to Jorgenson, the older man warns him against taking action, and offers his own life as an example of failure. But in the end, with no future prospects, he agrees to join in the venture, along with his prematurely aged native wife.

Lingard has previously visited local chief Belarab to ask for help, and offers him guns in exchange for manpower. Lingard feels that since he has saved Hassim's life, he is tied to him in some mysterious way. He buys the old schooner Emma and runs it aground close to Belarab to use as a weapons store, placing Jorgenson in charge.

Part III. The Capture

When Lingard arrives on the stricken yacht he is met with hostility from its owner Mr Travers, who thinks he is a vulgar adventurer, intent on profiting from salvaging the yacht. Lingard sees the yacht and its passengers as merely annoying obstacles who have come between him and his plans.

The passenger d'Alcacer is in flight from Europe following the early death of his wife and is friendly with the owner's enigmatic wife Edith Travers. Whilst Lingard and Travers trade insults with each other, d'Alcacer takes an instant liking to Lingard and tries to mediate. But the dispute is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Hassim and his sister Immada.

Mrs Travers is fascinated by Immada's attractiveness, but the girl and her brother reproach Lingard for recently neglecting them, and leave with him when the interview comes to a fruitless conclusion.

On her own after dinner on the yacht, Mrs Travers reflects upon the failure of her romantic dreams. Suddenly, Lingard rows up alongside to talk to her, telling her he feels completely detached from his British roots and more at home with the Malaysians.

He wants her to help him by pretending to be frightened on the yacht, so that they will have no alternative but to accept Lingard's offer to house them on the brig. He tells her the whole background story, which touches her romantic sentiments. She feels existentially elated by his frankness and emotional honesty. She is preparing herself to act on his behalf when she is told that her husband and d'Alcacer have been kidnapped whilst walking along the shore.

Back on the brig, Lingard reads a letter he has received from Jorgenson describing disquiet amongst the natives who want to attack the stranded yacht. The letter warns of a threat from rival local leader Tengga to seize the arms stored on the Emma.