The Voyage of the 'Bon Accord. ' by James Grant

The narrator, Bob Slingsby, recounts a voyage he made at sixteen as senior apprentice aboard the Aberdeen clipper Bon Accord, bound from London to Hong Kong. After leaving Swatow on 24 September, the ship takes on a native pilot who steers her toward a hidden bay. Bob and his fellow apprentice Charlie Newcome grow suspicious that the pilot is in fact the notorious one-eyed pirate Long Kiang, whose mutilated arm and scarred face they recognize from a newspaper account. Their fears are confirmed when a pirate lorcha shadows the ship and the treacherous pilot abandons the wheel and leaps overboard just as the vessel nears danger. Captain Archibald arms the crew, and a fierce running battle ensues with cannon and small arms as the lorcha, crewed by dozens of pirates, closes in and eventually boards. The captain and most officers are killed, the Lascar sailors desert, and Bob is shot at and driven into the sea, only to be hauled aboard by Long Kiang himself, who beats him unconscious after failing to extract information about hidden money. The pirates loot and set fire to the ship, then retire to their lorcha to celebrate, leaving Bob and a handful of wounded survivors, led by the resourceful boatswain Joe Rudderford, alone on the smoldering Bon Accord. Under cover of darkness, Rudderford leads a small party in the ship's boat to sabotage the drunken pirates' lorcha, boring holes in her hull and cutting her rigging so she cannot be steered or repaired. As dawn breaks, the lorcha founders and sinks with all hands, drowning Long Kiang and his crew. The survivors patch up the Bon Accord and, guided by local fishermen, limp into Hong Kong harbor. There the ship takes on a new captain and a fresh crew, among whom Rudderford discovers his long-lost brother William, once shipwrecked and enslaved near Tonquin — a joyful, tearful reunion. The Bon Accord departs for New Zealand and then turns homeward across the Pacific, but the new captain proves an incompetent, brutal drunkard. Near the desolate, fog-bound Crozet Islands in the far Southern Ocean, the crew briefly boards a mysteriously abandoned derelict ship, laden with valuable cargo and strewn with passengers' belongings, whose fate is never explained; it is lost again in a gale before it can be salvaged. Ignoring warnings to shorten sail as fog thickens and a gale rises, the drunken captain drives the Bon Accord onto the rocks of the Crozets. The ship is wrecked instantly, the captain and mate drown, and Bob is swept overboard, clinging to seaweed on the rocks through the night before hauling himself to safety with Willie Rudderford. By morning seventeen survivors, including Joe Rudderford, are found scattered on the barren, uninhabited island. Under Joe's leadership the castaways organize a stark survival routine: finding fresh water, subsisting on seabirds and their eggs, burning bones and driftwood for fuel, building rough shelters, and maintaining a signal flag and constant lookout for passing ships. They endure nearly five months of bitter cold, monotonous diet, and the death of one companion from gangrene, all while enduring the psychological torment of two ships passing too far off to see their signals. Meanwhile, no word of the Bon Accord's fate reaches England, and she is given up for lost amid wild newspaper speculation. Finally, on the 159th day of their ordeal, the American whaler President sights their signal and rescues all seventeen survivors. The captain lands them at the Cape of Good Hope, where Bob parts ways with Joe and Willie Rudderford, who ship out for Scotland, while he returns to London by steamer — arriving home to find his family had already given him up for dead.

By James Grant · First published 1890 · Genre: Adventure Fiction, Maritime Fiction, Survival Fiction · 8,569 words

First lines

My name is Bob Slingsby, and in the autumn of last year I was senior apprentice, or midshipman (for we wore a smart uniform), on board the good ship _Bon Accord_ of Aberdeen, freighted from London to Hong Kong, and a few who may survive to read these lines will recall the story I am about to tell -- the plain unvarnished one of a sailor boy (I was then only sixteen) in the Indian seas.

We had left Swatow on the 24th of September, after getting on board a pilot, who was the cause of all the mischief that followed.

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What this Textopian page supports

The Voyage of the 'Bon Accord. ' is listed on Textopian as a short story by James Grant, dated 1890 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

• Work type: Short story
• Author: James Grant
• Date: 1890 CE
• Language: English
• Genres: Adventure Fiction, Maritime Fiction, Survival Fiction, Historical Fiction, Action Fiction
• Length: 8,569 words
• Structure: 1 section, 150 paragraphs
• Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

Good citation fit

• Work identity for The Voyage of the 'Bon Accord. ' by James Grant
• Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
• Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
• Readability and classroom-planning context
• Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph

Genres

• Adventure Fiction — The narrative is fundamentally structured around a succession of escalating adventures: pirate attack, naval combat, mysterious derelict encounter, and shipwreck. The protagonist is propelled through danger and discovery, the hallmark of adventure fiction. The text emphasizes thrilling action sequences and perilous circumstances from beginning to end.
• Maritime Fiction — The work is saturated with maritime detail: ship terminology (lorcha, topsails, courses, studding-sails), sailing procedures, naval combat tactics, and intricate descriptions of vessel construction and maneuvers. The setting and operations are fundamentally nautical, reflecting specialized knowledge of 19th-century sailing vessels and ocean navigation.
• Survival Fiction — The extended Crozet Islands sequence comprises roughly one-third of the narrative and details the crew's protracted struggle against starvation, cold, isolation, and disease. The focus on resourcefulness, rationing, shelter-building, and the psychological toll of being marooned exemplifies survival literature.
• Historical Fiction — The work is explicitly situated in a specific historical period (19th century) with references to contemporary events (China Mail newspaper, colonial trade routes, Macao piracy), period-appropriate technology, and attitudes reflecting the colonial era. The historical setting informs plot, terminology, and cultural context.

Tags

adventure fiction · maritime fiction · historical fiction · sea voyage · nautical adventure · shipboard life · ocean travel · sailing ships · Scottish literature · Victorian literature · nineteenth-century fiction · romance

More by James Grant

• The Scots Brigade (1890)
• The Story of the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar (1890)
• The Boy-General (1890)
• The Bugle-Boy of Badajoz (1890)
• A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul (1890)
• Dick Staples of the 'Queen's own. ' (1890)
• The Story of Lieutenant James Moody of Barton's Regiment (1890)
• 'Old Minorca; ' or, General Murray of the Scots Fusiliers (1890)
• All works by James Grant