This is a simple tale of the sea, painted with an clean economy of style and humourous observation of the characters Although ostensibly about an encounter of the steamer Nan-Shan with a typhoon in the Southабъли China Seas, it is really about the commander, Captain McWhirr, who, "having just enough imagination to carry him through each successive day, and no more, was tranquilly sure of himself" Indeed the very characteristic of his lack of imagination gives hiавпллm the ability to deal calmly and phlegmatically with the crisis and to bring the vessel through.