Captain Kettle on the war-path

"Captain Kettle on the war-path" by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne is a collection of wartime adventure stories written in the early 20th century. The work follows the audacious seafarer Captain Sir Owen Kettle—and, at times, other hard-bitten British mariners—as they conduct improvised naval raids, sabotage, and cloak‑and‑dagger exploits against Germany during the Great War. Expect brisk action, sardonic humor, and a taste for ingenuity at sea and ashore. The opening of the book drops straight into World War I escapades. First, Kettle teams with an eager M.P., is shanghaied onto a Norwegian tanker secretly supplying a U‑boat, and then seizes the bridge to ram and accidentally detonate the submarine, surviving a sinking and a second U‑boat’s brutality before making landfall in Ireland. Next comes a standalone tale: a Grimsby skipper who loses his twin sons to a mine commandeers a German minelayer, uses captured mines to sink a light cruiser, and—after threading the Heligoland defenses in fog—blows up a major battlecruiser, sacrificing his trawler in the process. Finally, the narrative returns to Kettle as an actor-turned-fixer, Holly Holroyd, recruits him to choke off Germany’s cotton supply via a neutral port; posing as American academics, they stash decoys, pocket real incendiary gear, scout cotton-choked quays, and brawl with German agents in a hotel before planning a rooftop escape.

Captain Kettle on the war-path, by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #78784.