Jack Higgins revisited

In 'Storm Warning', a comparable slender volume, author Jack Higgins,

manages to cram onto only 237 pages,

a veritable maelstrom of emotions played out to a background of a dual war.
War between forces of enemy countries.
War between forces of nature, as in oceans wild, and frail humans.
A Wagnerian seeming epic of words without music.
There are acts of kindness, omission, devotion (both religious and human).
There are present indomitable spirits, leniency, willfulness and  heroism.
There are base acts, acts of platonic love, of sexual love (hinted at-mostly).
There is hope writ large, and despair.

All on an old sailing ship-a Barkentine (left) that seems to be held together mostly by hope and wishes.
There is always wishful thinking, a belief in god and in the good of humans.
You name it, the author covers it all.
No one is truly fleshed out in this cast of hundreds.
All's only just touched upon, but then the prolific author 
had only 237 pages do it on.
It's written well, it draws the reader in to finish it in a short time.
It casts down, but yet raises hopes that all's not lost.
That humankind is not yet done with, despite the horrors of war of both sorts.
It's the kind of a book to read on Thanksgiving Day.
Thankful to be in the South, a bit of a cold South.
And NO driving snow and lashings of wind and waves!
Imagine those gale force 10 winds effecting a tall, old and leaky, wooden sailing ship: