Facing the Flag
by Jules Verne
'Facing the Flag ' Summary
Karraje and his crew lead double lives. Karraje goes around openly, under the alias of "Count d'Artigas", a pleasure-loving, slightly eccentric but eminently respectable member of nobility. He is a regular visitor to the ports of the East Coast aboard his schooner Ebba. To outward appearances, Ebba has no other means of propulsion than its sails, but in fact, it is pulled by an underwater tug. By this means, Karraje and his crew can pull up to becalmed sailing vessels without raising suspicion and board them without warning. They then rob and massacre the crews, scuttling the ships, adding to the statistics of "unexplained disappearances".
Karraje hears of Roch and his invention takes them both seriously and decides to gain possession of them. Actually, his aim is rather modest. He has no intention to seize mastery over the world, but just to make his hide-out impregnable. He and his men successfully kidnap Roch from his American asylum, and then bring him to their hide-out—the desolate island of Back Cup in the Bermudas. Here a wide cavern, accessible only by submerged submarine, has been made into a well-equipped pirate base. It has its own electrical power plant and is completely unknown to the rest of the world.
During the kidnapping, however, Karraje orders his men to also take along Gaydon, Roch's attendant for the past fifteen months. The reader knows (and, as is later shown, Karraje is also aware) that Gaydon is actually Simon Hart, a French engineer and explosives expert. Hart had decided "to perform the menial and exacting duties of an insane man's attendant" in the hope of learning Roch's secret and, thereby, saving it for France, actuated by "a spirit of the purest and noblest patriotism."
Hart is kept imprisoned at the pirate base, though in quite comfortable conditions. He can only watch in dismay as the pirate chief easily manages what four governments in succession have failed to do: win Roch over. Roch is given "many rolls of dollar bills and banknotes, and handfuls of English, French, American and German gold coins" with which to fill his pockets. Further, Roch is formally informed that the entire secret cavern and all in it are henceforward his property, and egged on to "defend his property" against the world which has wronged him so badly. Soon, the inventor is busy constructing his fearsome weapon, happily unaware that he is nothing but a glorified prisoner in the pirate's hands.
The paranoid Roch does, however, keep to himself the secret of the detonator or "Deflagrator", a liquid without which the explosive is merely an inert powder. By holding fast to that last secret, Roch unwittingly preserves the life of his ex-keeper Gaydon/Simon Hart. Karraje suspects, wrongly, that Hart knows much more of Roch's secrets than he is willing to let on. It serves the purposes of the pirate chief, a completely ruthless killer, to let Hart live. The pirate engineer Serko, Hart's "colleague," hopes to win him over in prolonged friendly conversations. Hart's reticence is misunderstood as proof that he has something to hide.
The pirates underestimate Hart, giving him a practically free run of their hide-out since the only way out is via submarine. But after carefully studying the currents, Hart succeeds in secretly sending out a message in a metal keg, giving the full details of Karraje's operations and his impending acquisition of the Fulgurator.
The message gets through to the British authorities at their nearby naval base in Bermuda, and the British Navy sends a submarine, HMS Sword, to find Hart. The submarine's crew makes contact with Hart, and take him and Roch on board, but the Sword is discovered, attacked and sunk by the pirates in a direct underwater submarine vs. submarine battle. The unconscious Hart and Roch are extracted from the sunken British sub by pirate divers, leaving the entire British crew to perish. Hart manages to convince the pirates that he had been kidnapped by the British sailors and had nothing to do with their "visit." He resumes his role as a tolerated prisoner with a free run of the pirate base.
Meanwhile, Roch's weapon is completed and becomes operational. A hastily gathered international naval task force approaches the island, consisting of five warships dispatched by the world's five largest powers.
The weapon, operated personally by Roch himself, works fully as advertised. Roch has no compunction in using it on British or American ships, and the first cruiser to approach the island is easily destroyed with only a handful of its crew surviving. Undaunted, the next ship approaches the shore, and the moment comes towards which the entire book was leading and from which its title was drawn: "A flag unfurls to the breeze. It is the Tricolour, whose blue, white and red sections stand out luminously against the sky. Ah! What is this? Thomas Roch is fascinated at the sight of his national emblem. Slowly he lowers his arm as the flag flutters up to the mast-head. Then he draws back and covers his eyes with his hand. Heavens above! All sentiment of patriotism is not then dead in his ulcerated heart, seeing that it beats at the sight of his country's flag!"
Having at the moment of truth, rediscovered his patriotism, Roch refuses to fire on his country's ship. He struggles with the pirates who try to seize his phial and the Deflagrator. During the struggle, Roch resorts to blowing up himself, his weapon, and the pirates along with the entire island. The single survivor of the cataclysm is Simon Hart, whose unconscious body with the diary at his side is found by the landing French sailors.
Hart is eventually revived, to be amply rewarded for his dedication to his country. He proudly bears witness to Thomas Roch's last-minute change of heart and self-sacrifice. French patriotism is the moral and material victor.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
FrenchPublished In
1896Genre/Category
Tags/Keywords
Author
Jules Verne
France
Verne is considered to be an important author in France and most of Europe, where he has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism. His reputation was markedly different in an...
More on Jules VerneDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books
The Airship Boys in the Great War by De Lysle Ferrée Cass
Little did Alan, Ned and Buck suspect what they were getting themselves in for when they approached the editor of The Herald with their plan to re-emp...
The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Poison Belt is a science fiction novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, the second book about Professor Challenger. Written in 1913, much of...
Topsy-Turvy by Jules Verne
The Purchase of the North Pole or Topsy-Turvy is an adventure novel by Jules Verne, published in 1889. It is the third and last novel of the Baltimore...
La casa de vapor by Jules Verne
"Adéntrate en un mundo de innovación y aventura con 'La Casa de Vapor', una obra maestra de Jules Verne. Desde el momento en que se enciende la máquin...
Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs
It is an exciting adventure novel that transports readers to the mysterious and dangerous world of Venus. This book takes young readers on a thrilling...
The Centaurians by L. D. Biagi
Published in 1911, 15 years before the first verified discovery of the North Pole and in the same year when F. Cook published a memoir claiming his ow...
A Lad of Mettle by Nat Gould
When Edgar Foster came to Redbank School he was sixteen, small for his age, but muscular and active. Alumni of the school included accomplished athlet...
The Underground City or the Child of the Cavern by Jules Verne
This novel follows the fortunes of the mining community of Aberfoyle near Stirling, Scotland. Receiving a letter from an old colleague, mining enginee...
Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The stories initially involve the adventures of mining heir David Innes and his inventor friend Abner Perry after they use an "iron mole" to burrow 50...
The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service by James Driscoll
The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service is a boys adventure story set in WWI - Three College Chums join the military and face the perils of spies, subm...
Reviews for Facing the Flag
No reviews posted or approved, yet...