Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on 09/12/00 from 172.17.4.90 via proxy home.cosco.com.cn:
In Reply to: Re: Arthur Ransome and Thailand (Siam)- shipping services and the elephant flag posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on September 11, 2000 at 07:57:45:
Just to clarify, Conrad's Siamese flag in "Typhoon" is white on a red ground, correctly, because Conrad had been to Bangkok, as mate and Master of a sailing ship, and used the experience in his fiction (Falk, The Shadow Line). What I am suggesting is that AR was casting about for an exotic flag for the houseboat, and remembered, probably subconsciously, the exotic elephant flag in "Typhoon" where its very exotic nature is germane to the plot (Jukes is uneasy, McWhirr is not bothered). The fact that the storm in SA comes so soon after the flag lends a filament of support to my hypothesis that AR was thinking of "Typhoon" - then, as now, the finest description of a storm at sea in English literature, and surely known to him.