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Send a Gunboat

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About this listen

HMS Wagtail is a river gunboat, a ship seemingly at the end of her unusual life, lying in a Hong Kong dockyard awaiting her last summons to the breakers' yard. Commander Justin Rolfe is also seemingly at the end of his useful naval life, an embittered man, brooding and angry from a court-martial verdict. Then the offshore island of Santu is threatened with invasion from the Chinese mainland.

The small British community must be brought out, and Commander Rolfe and the Wagtail are ordered to the island...

©1960 Douglas Reeman (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Historical Fiction Fiction China
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I’m always looking for new and different stories to get a break from thrillers. Send a Gunboat is good story with enough twists and turns and jeopardy to keep the reader engaged. I will certainly be reading more from this author.

Fresh story, good narration

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Another excellent Book by Douglas Reeman with another great performance from David Rintoul. Set in the Far East just after WW2. A different story and enjoyable.

Another great listen.

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A good story with a mixture of military guile, excitement. with a nice romantic thread.

Exciting, with a nice touch of romance.

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Excellent telling of a great story. Good attention too detail with well developed characters. Leave's you feeling as if you're actually there.

The destroyer's

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This is not Douglas Reemans best work, it starts slowly with unlikable characters, a drunken captain and ineffective officers on a obsolete river gun boat are sent to a small island off Communist China in the early 50's to evacuate a few British citizens. the story overall is good but the language is dated and very colonial British and the characters are obnoxious and self important until they find themselves during the last third, a full on daring escape and battle for survival which really builds the tension. The narration is great helping lift the beginning and nails the climax.

A slow start but worth persevering with

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