Fathom Five (novel)

"Fathom Five" is a novel by Robert Westall (1929-1993) and a sequel to "The Machine Gunners", also by Westall.

Plot summary

The novel reunites some of the characters from the Machine Gunners, specifically Chas McGill, "Cem" Jones and Audrey Parton, whilst introducing the middle-class Sheila as Chas' sometime girlfriend.

Set in 1943, two years after the events of Machine Gunners, it traces the attempt to uncover a spy in Garmouth.

Major themes

The novel has an older theme to it than "The Machine Gunners", in line with the characters' own growth.

The relationship between Chas and Sheila explores all the hope and inexperience of first love. The transition from boy to man is one of the central aspects of the novel. Chas is ultimately faced with a decision a mature adult would find daunting.

Whilst Machine Gunners tends to focus on the bombing and fear of invasion in 1941, Fathom Five fleshes out the world war. The ongoing effects of four years of rationing are covered (examples: Chas putting a hole in his trousers. The items brought by the different protagonists to the beach picnic. The Ministry of Food invitation to "Try our delicious woolton pie"). There is reference to the diaspora that has fled to Britain including Scandinavian fishermen, the Maltese underclass and Jewish pawnbrokers. It is through one of these that Chas encounters a widow of the arctic convoys, which puts a disinctly human perspective on war. In addition the sheer banality of continuing war is alluded to.

As the plot develops the author explores the social forces at work in 1943 Britain. Chas, the son of a gas fitter, embarks on a tentative relationship with Sheila, the daughter of a prominent local Magistrate. Chas is initially seduced by "Adults who you could discuss TS Elliot with", but the relationship is not approved of by Sheila's parents. In the end it is Chas's father who clarifies matters. The McGill family bookshelf consists of a shelf of Left Book Club titles including, we are lead to understand, Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia". Chas becomes an avid reader of these and starts to understand the society he lives in.

The book is largely unsentimental. The Maltese of the Low Street are described in pungent detail as petty criminals and vice merchants, and no mention is made of the heroic resistance that had so recently been underway on the island of Malta.