Ordeal

by Nevil Shute

Known as "What Happened to the Corbetts" in England.

Genres: Fiction, War, Historical Fiction, Classics, Audiobook, Historical, British Literature

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Nevil Shute Norway was a popular British novelist and a successful aeronautical engineer.

He used Nevil Shute as his pen name, and his full name in his engineering career, in order to protect his engineering career from any potential negative publicity in connection with his novels.

He lived in Australia for the ten years before his death.

Reviews

[Algernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if in passing through the world you leave a mark behind. A sort of impression. I'd like to think so, because I think we must have left a good one. We're not famous people and we've not done much. Nobody knows anything about us. But we've been so happy. We've lived quietly and decently and done our job. We've had kids, too - and they're good ones. But I wish we could have had another boy.

Peter and Joan Corbett, together with their three young children, are gone from their modest house in a quiet neighborhood of Southampton. They were a decent, shy, modest young couple who didn't ask for much and who found happiness in the little pleasures of family life : going to work every day, keeping the house clean, listening to the radio in the evening, tending the lawn, going out from time to time sailing on an old second hand boat.

He was thirty-four years old, a pleasant, ordinary young man of rather a studious turn.

Peter Corbett is a typical Nevil Shute protagonist (come to think of it, Dick Francis uses the same type of anti-hero in his thrillers): a middle class professional with moderate ambitions and a pleasant disposition. He is good at his job, respected by his neighbors, loves his wife and children and is passionate about sailing. His life is a tranquil succession of routine days, until one fateful evening when the sky starts raining brimstone over Southampton.

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There have been numerous novels written about the Blitz, but the present one stands apart from the rest in one important aspect : it was written two years BEFORE the first German raid on English soil. It is, in other words, a science-fiction novel, a cautionary tale, something like the later and better known account of the aftermath of nuclear war that Nevil Shute will write a couple of decades later. I sure am glad the apocalyptic future imagined by the author in "On The Beach" didn't come to pass, but "The Ordeal" of the Corbetts (the alternative title of the present novel) is a lucid and often chillingly accurate analysis of the future impact heavy and indiscriminate bombing will have on infrastructure, governance, the health and the mental stability of the population.

Nevil Shute the engineer is looking at technical aspects of type of aircraft, flight paths, navigation instruments, likely damage to buildings and utilities, best actions to take to protect your home and your family. Read like this the novel serves a similar role as one of the modern Situation Analysis Reports that military Chiefs of Staff commission and use to prepare for emergencies. Indeed, after publication in 1939, a thousand copies of the novel were distributed freely to Air Wardens across the country.

Nevil Shute the novelist knows that the most important thing to preserve in a war is our humanity, our integrity, our dignity and our decency. This is why the Corbetts are stand-ins in the eyes of the author for the best the British culture has to offer: that stiff upper lip, that dogged determination to rise up and try again after you've been knocked down, that instinctive impulse to lend a hand and to help a neighbour in need - character traits that have little to do with one political party or another. Peter Corbett, on waking out in the garage after the first night of bombing over Southampton, checks first that his wife and children are OK, then he dresses up and goes back to work, as he did every day of his married life:

Twenty minutes later, spruce and neat in his business suit, bowler hat, and dark overcoat, and carrying a neatly furled umbrella on his arm, he came to her again.

How does that song goes ? "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun". Peter wants to defy the bombs and get on with his routines, trusting the government and the army to patch things up and to defend the realm. But with subsequent attacks, with water, sewage, electricity, radio and newspapers gone, food staples in short supply and services coming to halt, soon followed by deadly epidemics and civil structure collapse, Peter is forced to admit defeat and to try to get his family out of the danger zone. He is troubled by his conscience which tells him that he is young and fit for enlistment, that he should take up arms and defend his country. A conversation with a neighbour, a veteran from the first world war, will help Corbett set his priorities right:

'I'm not going - not till I can see my way a bit better. It wouldn't be fair on the missus leaving her alone, with raids like that we had likely to happen any night. We've been together all these years, and I'm not going to leave her at a time like this. It wouldn't be right. Of course,' he said, 'if I could get to see her settled and comfy in a little house somewhere where it's safe, then it'd be another matter'.
Corbett laughed shortly. 'Somewhere safe and comfy,' he repeated. 'It seems to me that's going to take a bit of finding.'

The first part of the novel describes the effects of the raids, the second part the efforts of the Corbetts to get out of the south of England. Nevil Shute knows how to keep the reader glued to the page. He in top form here as he combines technical details with reportage, human interest stories with adventure at sea, the last part from a dangerous journey in a small boat through the English Channel.

Some of the predictions made by the author will blessedly prove inaccurate. He errs on the side of caution by considering a worse case scenario, and later events will prove that the local and central administration will be able to cope with the damage and that people will come together and help each other survive the worst of the bombing. Some of the exaggerations in the predicted social collapse may be intended as I mentioned earlier, for raising awareness and for preparing the population in case of emergency. In the afterword, the author both dedicates the novel to the people of Southampton and apologizes in advance for the slur on the city officials:

Very likely by the time you read these words I shall be in trouble with your chief officials. [...] But I don't care. If I have held your attention for an evening, if I have given to the least of your officials one new idea to ponder and digest, then I shall feel that this book will have played a part in preparing us for the terrible things that you, and I, and all the cities in this country, may one day have to face together.

Part of the bleak overview though may stem from Nevil Shute's dissatisfaction with the bureaucracy and the inertia he had had to wade through in his professional career, issues that will eventually drive him into exile a few years later. Despite the evident love he has for his homeland, the author will join the growing ranks of refugees who search for "somewhere safe and comfy" among strangers. The Corbetts of 1938, the Shute's of the 1950's, are sadly still relevant today, since indiscriminate bombs still fall from the sky on civilian targets, and "collateral damage" victims still have to flee from loving homes into the unknown, to promised lands where they are received with suspicion and angry words.

So maybe not one of Nevil Shute's best novels, but still one that celebrates the common man and the dreams of family and peace he holds dear. Recommended.

[edit for spelling 2025]

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book the first two times I read it, but reading it now as we start to emerge from the pandemic, was even more interesting.

Peter and Joan Corbett and their three kids (6, 3, and 1, if I remember correctly) live in Southampton in 1939 when the UK goes to war with an unnamed country that starts an intense bombing campaign. Written in 1938 and published in early 1939, it predicts the German bombings, but Shute also supposes the spread of communicable diseases because of damaged water and sewer infrastructure.

In order to stay out of quarantine, the family of five decides to rough it out on their small sailboat.

If you like reading about people putting things right, this book (and pretty much any Shute novel) is for you. And by putting things right, I don't mean in the moral sense--although his characters are usually flawlessly moral--I mean in everyday, mundane terms. (Securing Peter's bombed out office, making shelter from the bombing, helping neighbors, provisioning and reprovisioning their boat, rescuing an RAF pilot, etc.)

Shute's novels can come across a little corny and old fashioned, but that is also what makes them fabulous. In this case, their constant quest for milk for the baby becomes kind of comical, mainly through repetition, but also because Shute seems to think that an infant can subsist only on cow's milk. But rather than detract, that detail only reinforces the old fashioned, romanticized view of the past that I find totally engaging. Especially in these times.

[Robin Squier]

Nevil Shute is the author to go to when you just need a good story. He is like an old friend.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting enough little book, which I rated as "OK", which is just what it is. The Corbett’s, Peter, Joan and their three children, live in Southampton, and when the bombing begins they realize they must get out. Unfortunately, nothing much happens to the Corbetts that didn’t happen to everyone around them, so “getting out” becomes a difficult task.

They flee to a yacht (read large boat, not luxurious boat) that they own, which is anchored in Hamble. Things are not much better there, and they eventually find themselves at sea trying desperately to find moorage. The adventure builds as they decide destinations and are turned away from one port after another.

The story is told rather blandly, with no emotion from the main characters or the author, as far as I can tell. Perhaps we are just meant to see the stiff upper-lip and composure of the English, but it kept me completely from any sense of involvement with the characters. These people don't mourn anyone or anything, they never cry, and they hardly express fear.

The book was written in January 1939, and the war and bombing did not begin until the end of that year. No one knew what would happen, so much of what he guesses is right, but just as much is wrong. Needless to say, if he had written it one year later, it would surely have had a different plot.

As Shute books go, this one is a more a miss than a hit. In the afterword, he says he hopes the book will enlighten those in the “New World” to "something of our difficulties, and makes academic problems real to those people in my country who are working for our safety”. It would seem this book was crafted for one purpose, that has been served and passed. I was not sorry to watch the Corbetts sail off into the sunset.

[Cally73 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can not believe that no one thought to collect rainwater!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The important thing is to remember that this book was written 1 year before the start of WWII. It would certainly appeal to all sailing fans but, not being one, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as his other novels.

[David Dennington · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was stumped for a while at the beginning when reading this book. It tells of an enemy suddenly attacking and bombing Britain. These descriptions were good, but it left me asking myself if I’d missed something in my early life and understanding of the war. Then the penny dropped. Shute had written this book in 1938 before the war had begun. From that perspective, it was clever and foreshadowing, although it seemed somehow unreal, as it would for readers with the benefit of hindsight who know exactly what happened. The final scenes at sea were tense and exciting. I think I’m right in saying that Shute does not mention the enemy by name. Maybe it was censored or his publisher advised against it.

[Elinor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neil Shute's great appeal is the way he writes about how ordinary, unexceptional people cope in a crisis. This novel was written two years before the onset of the Second World War, but he predicts how an average family called the Corbetts might behave when their city of Southampton experiences its first bombing raids. In this he was prescient. The British people did behave well for the most part. The Corbetts take care of their children and conduct themselves bravely. The book ends just as the war is getting underway, and the final chapter brought a tear to my eye. This wasn't Shute's greatest novel, but he never disappoints.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very realistic plot telling the story of a typical British family which city was contanstly bombed during 2nd World War.

5* A Town Like Alice
2* On the Beach
4* Pied Piper
4* Landfall
4.5* Most secret
4* Marazan
3* Requiem for a Wren
4* No Highway
4* The Chequer Board
4* Beyond the Black Stump
4* The Far Country
4* Lonely Road
3* Trustee from the Toolroom
3* An old captivity
3.5* Ordeal
TR Round the bend
TR Pastoral
TR So disdained
TR The Rainbow and the Rose

[Lois Barnard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second Nevil Shute book I've read. Loved the setting of WW2 bombing in Great Britain and the impact the bombing had on families. It wasn't something that I'd thought about before so again the 2nd Nevil Shute book is memorable and impacting.
I've looking forward to reading another of his books.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting pre World War II novel, published in 1939, by author and aviation expert Nevil Shute in which he attempts to describe for civilians and others living in the UK before the war what wartime life was likely to be like. This brings to mind his later distopian novel On the Beach though in this tale things are slightly less dire even at the very worst. The focus of the story is a British family - the Corbetts - father a solicitor, mother a homemaker, a young boy and girl plus an infant girl - and recounts their various expenses from the surprise outbreak of war and the onset of aerial bombing onf their home community, neighbors, their own home, etc and how seriously challenged they and the local and national authorities are likely to find themselves. The story is set mainly along the south coast of England and Shute draws upon both his experience as an aviation engineer and an avid sailor and small boat handler. I was surprised to see it reprinted so many times in succeeding years, expecting that it would have been pushed aside and totally forgotten by the very real events of the war and the multitude of subsequent books of fiction and non-fiction. An interesting read that I'm placing on my shelves with my histories of the actual war years.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several years ago, I read and enjoyed "A Town Like Alice" by Nevil Shute. Shute lived in the early-to-mid part of the twentieth century, and given the way current literary trends are going, I thought I'd enjoy another of his books. Note that Shute was British, and in Britain this book is titled "What Happened to the Corbetts."

The book is aptly named; Peter and Joan Corbett are a couple in their early 30s with three young kids who live in Southampton, England. Bombs start flying, and they soon realize they're not really safe at home. They move out to live on their "yacht" (which is really a fairly average boat), but boats are also targets for bombs as well as for underwater mines. Back on land, cholera is making a round. What to do? Where to go? These are the dilemmas they face.

The angst facing the Corbetts is vividly described and honestly it was kind of stressful reading this book. Shute writes really simply, and at times the writing reminded me of the primers we learned to read in ("Oh Peter," she had cried, "it hurts my ears!"). The action happens in 1938, back when men were men and women were women ("In the turmoil he had given his orders to the women in a firm, decisive manner.")

Although you might think this book was modeled on WWII, it was written a year prior (although WWII-ish things were certainly gearing up in 1938). So the "enemy" country is never named. It's interesting to contemplate what things were like then, pre-internet: "If he had time, it would be nice to find out if the country was at war and, if so, who the war was with." As the action begins, Shute does a good job describing the strange sense of excitement that can exist even in bad and scary times, just due to the novelty of something new: "... a certain thrill and pleasure in the break of the routine. People were standing at street corners chatting eagerly to strangers; at other points there seemed to be the apathy of tragedy."

It was kind of refreshing yet funny as well to note the differences in how things are perceived and described in 1938 vs today. Peter "very much disliked looking after the children," while Joan in one scene refers to the baby as "the little brat." No Instagram fuzzy-filtered stories for the Corbetts! A major theme in the story is the effort to find milk for the baby (who is only finally named very late in the book). I wished so many times that Joan had breastfed, but maybe that was out of fashion in the '30s? Also, after all the couple's efforts to stay alive, they frequently spent evenings sitting around smoking. How times change!

No spoilers on what happens with the Corbetts, but I enjoyed this book quite a bit.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tedious and dry, with stupid characters who don’t deserve to survive.

[Sara Gabai · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting....

[Andrew Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was far from his best work. Competent and readable, but not compulsive or heart-warming like so many of his novels. It was probably important at the time (just before ww2) to warn people and wake them up about what to expect, but it is slow and depressing at first, though gets more engaging and enjoyable later on. Nonetheless, there is little in either plot or characterisation that will live with me for very long...

[Andy]

DNF. Bizarro political predictions of a future that never happened. I have loved other novels by Shute but could not get into this.

[Dana Berglund · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1939, Shute published this book as a cautionary tale, a speculative novel about what another war could look like for southern England, given the technology that was developing at the time. While he wasn't totally accurate in his psychic abilities, he was enough so that it does read more like historical than speculative fiction.
There are a few problems in translating this to a modern reader, mostly in the insipid racism, classism and sexism of the time. But it wasn't as extreme as I feared it might be, and the main character does treat his wife as a partner more of the time than I expected. (Even though the author repeatedly refers to her as a girl. She's a 30-something mother of 3. She's not a girl.)

[Chrissie]

*****************

*A Town Like Alice 4 stars
*The Chequer Board 4 stars
*No Highway 4 stars
*The Far Country 4 stars
*Landfall 4 stars
*Most Secret 4 stars
*Beyond The Black Stump 4 stars
*Round the Bend 4 stars
*Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer 3 stars
*Marazan 3 stars
*Pied Piper 3 stars
*Ruined City 3 stars
*Trustee from the Toolroom 3 stars
*The Rainbow and the Rose 3 stars
*An Old Captivity 2 stars
*Requiem for a Wren 2 stars
*So Distained 2 stars
*Pastoral 1 star
*Lonely Road TBR

*In the Wet maybe
*What Happened to the Corbetts maybe
*On the Beach maybe

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did, rereading it after something like 45 years, but I fear that what is normally one of Nevil Shute's strengths - his sharp and detailed observation of the manners, speech, attitudes and environment of unexceptional, unpretentious English people in the period of which he was writing (in this case the 1930s) - veers rather too close to caricature here. His characters, the Corbett family of the title - a comfortable middle class unit living in Southampton on the English south coast - are riven with the kind of snobberies and sense of entitlement that Shute normally mocks gently, such that they are unusually unsympathetic. They also do not appear to have given their nursing baby a name, which strikes me as unusual, to say the least, referring to the (non-gender-specified) infant only as 'Baby'.

The setting, an imagining of the outbreak of the Second World War, still some two years distant when the book was being written, is reasonably well done, but suffers from a few gaps in narrative credibility, not least of which is the complete absence of newspapers to transmit information about the military and political situation to a confused and frightened populace - very important even in the pre-1939 period, and contributory, I believe, to the relative *lack* of civil disturbance that occurred even at the height of the Blitz a couple of years later. This kind of omission is perhaps the novel's greatest weakness: there's no reason why Shute's protagonists *should* be likeable (in fact, their unlikeability may be the point - everyone suffers in war), but the absence of material detail lets down both the book itself and Its author's normal fastidious approach to his storytelling.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I've always had a very high regard for Shute, this one doesn't really measure up. I only recently found out about its existence and it's easy to see why it never became popular. Unlike most of Shute's work that is based on his own knowledge and experiences, this book is speculative; that is, he imagines, in 1938 what WW2 would be like for ordinary civilians in England. He got some of it right, notably that there would be widespread bombing of cities by heavy explosives; but his depiction of the nature and impact of the bombing and how the civilian authorities dealt with it is quite a bit off. The book also suffers from a dearth of engaging characters. When I compare this book with his far more engaging and realistic Pied Piper, written 3 years later, I find myself wondering if Shute might not have wished he had withheld publication of the Corbetts.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This particular book of Shute’s always slightly confuses me – am I supposed to be reading a story about how a bunch of uptight conservatives are forced to truly confront how much they love their family? Or am I supposed to be reading a story about how an already-loving family is torn apart by a war and forced to get really tough and cold? Shute seems to be writing both stories at once, in how Mr and Mrs Corbett give up their nanny and begin to actually look after their children themselves and love them, but then also at the end completely resign themselves to no longer being together as a family.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Shute but I found this one difficult to get on with, largely because I found the Corbetts rather awful people. I know it's 1938, but they're horrible about their several servants when these souls, understandably, decide to put their own families' needs first, and Peter Corbett actively dislikes looking after his own children; it's presented as a noble sacrifice if he spends an hour with them so his wife can pop out. Meanwhile it's just fine for him to put off enlisting because he wants to look after his family.

All this aside, it's a fascinating piece of speculation about the effect of air raids on the south of England. Some of it Shute gets wrong, but some of it is horribly right.

[Suzanne Auckerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the US, this book is titled Ordeal. It is set in Brighton, England and describes what happens to a town once the relentless bombing begins. However, it was written before the war actually started and so fictional. However, by the time the book was published, the bombing had started. The book was held back and he included a disclaimer that it was fictional and not based on what was actually happening in England.

[Vikas Datta]

The bomber will always get through - unusually prescient while the narrative is most realistic but fast-paced too..

[Karen Hogan · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Family life is sent into chaos with the start of World War II, in Southhampton, England. Could not get into.

[Lisa of Hopewell · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25
My Interest

I have enjoyed each Nevil Shute book I’ve tried. So, why not another? Plus, he’s an Aussie author and this one was really short (my kindle version was 221 pages–barley over the 200 page limit suggested for Novellas in November, so I am counting it). This book was written in 1938 and published in 1939. It is fiction, but foretells what would happen in the Blitz.
The Story

“‘Home’s where your people are,’ he muttered to himself. “That’s about it.”

Peter and Joan Corbett are in their early 30s, with three young children. Peter is a lawyer in a partnership with one other lawyer. Both he and Joan were privately educated–he at Repton, she at an unnamed boarding school. The live in a newish home, next door to a contractor. They have a live-in nurse for their children and two maids who live out. Like the parents of young children everywhere, they are a bit distracted and not paying as much heed to the news as they should. Peter isn’t even sure which nation they are now at war with–so like today if happened, I’m sure. When war starts with a bombing raid, the Cobetts must deal with their lack of preparation–and the lack of preparation made by others around them.

With the calls from every corner for men to enlist, Peter decides he must see his family to safety first. They endure a few nights in the slit trench he painfully digs, covered by their car. As they sit in the rain on chairs in the mud, Peter hatches a plan to take his family to their yacht moored not too far from their Southampton home [a lot of boats are called “yachts” in the UK–not just the type Aristotle Onassis had] They will stay on it until things are calmer. Now, this is a fairly ordinary boat with one cabin–the baby’s “bed” hangs, if you can imagine, over the toilet! Imagine living one room, on water, during a war with bombs! In the end the family help in a very small scale Dunkirk-like operation.
My Thoughts

Shute uses contrived friendships (oh so convenient to have a builder/contractor next door, a doctor friend in the neighborhood, a friend in the RAF, etc.) to educate Peter and Joan, and hence the readers, on life in wartime. On taking seriously the government’s warnings and preparedness tips. It was a bit heavy handed for today, but it is largely a propaganda piece, albeit one I couldn’t put down.

Tiny Spoiler

“…you leave a mark behind you. A sort of impression. I’d like to think so, because I think we must have left a good one. We’re not famous people, and we’ve not done much. Nobody knows anything about us. But we’ve been so happy. We’ve lived quietly and decently, and done our job. We’ve had kids, too–and good ones.”

At the end, Peter and Joan both reflect and plan for the future. “This is the end of our young married life, Peter. We’ll be middle aged [when the war ends].” But it isn’t all doom and gloom ahead. Joan says “I do want a decent radio. The children are getting old enough to listen to good music now–just a little bit, now and again. I’d like to have a piano.” Peter thinks that a piano could be out of reach. Joan returns to the radio: “We could have the radio, couldn’t we? Even if we had to put ion the Never-Never?” [payment plan]. I loved this! A man with his “yacht” thinking a piano out of reach for them! I bet after the war, Joan got the radio and Peter got a new boat.

One interesting thing:

Baby Joan (yes, the same name as her mother) was always referred to as “baby”–not “Baby” as in a cute nickname, but “baby” a noun and nearly always given the pronoun “it” which today would shock people. I know in old movies and books we often her Nanny saying that, but today it sounds really awful. Joan does sometimes say “the baby” as in “It’ll be good when things get settled down and we can get some maids again….I’m sick of washing nappies for the baby.” Nonetheless, the Corbett’s were good, loving, caring parents. Peter even cooks! They do go a bit far “afield” getting milk for “baby” [no spoilers]. And while he hides it very well, “[Peter] very much disliked looking after the children” which I thought was hilariously honest. They also just offer random kitchen workers a few coins to watch their children for an hour knowing nothing about the people! Imagine today?

Once again, Shute leaves me desperate for a sequel. I want to know someone took that boat to Dunkirk? Did Peter live through the war? Does their marriage survive? After the war, does Joan get that “one more boy” she mused she’d like to have had to complete their little family? Is there anything left of their nice house in Southampton? Or of Peter’s law office?

This was my second book by Shute in which the main male character’s name was Peter. I wonder if there is a reason for the repetition?

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd experiment on Shute's part in something like speculative fiction. It's the story of Britain undergoing heavy bombing at the start of a World War II that had at the time of writing, not (quite) actually happened, and ultimately did not take place quite as described -- in this reality, the characters find refuge across the Channel in a sympathetic France which is harbouring the Royal Navy but still at peace, for example. So the novel would effectively have become 'outdated' within a year of publication, and sits oddly alongside wartime books like Pied Piper or Most Secret, with their real-life settings in an all-too-Nazi-occupied France.

Judging by the post-war preface ("I write this story to tell people what the coming bombing attacks would really be like, and what they really had to guard against. I was right in my guess that gas would not be used and in the disruption of civil life that would be caused by high explosives. I overlooked the importance of fire"), the book was written less as drama than as something between propaganda and a dire warning, attempting to stir up public opinion and divert the government away from the chimera of gas masks.

In practice he got about 50% of the predictions right, which makes for oddly disconcerting reading -- it's more like John Wyndham in The Day of the Triffids or The Kraken Wakes than your average WW2 novel. Cholera breaks out, the Isle of Wight refuses to admit refugees from the mainland, and the protagonists (and their three small children) in their small yacht find themselves commandeered to rescue the crew of a ditched aircraft mid-Channel, thus saving themselves by gaining the gratitude of the Navy. And the (carefully un-nnamed) Germans turn out to have developed a new 'gyroscopic sextant' which allows them to bomb by dead reckoning from 20,000 feet in total cloud cover.

Peter Corbett is supposed to be a public-school-educated solicitor, but to my ear he and his wife sound more like the lower-middle-class protagonists of many of Shute's other books compared to, say, John Howard of "Pied Piper". And I couldn't help wincing at the couple's ongoing attempts to feed their unweaned baby on difficult-to-acquire supplies of fresh cow's milk and tins (although of course several generations of children *were* raised on just such a diet, after wet-nursing went out of fashion, and many of them have survived into a robust old age). But it's an interesting dystopian alternate-reality adventure, written rather closer to the time than most such attempts. And it was evidently popular enough to reprint in more than one edition post-war.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting: Southampton, England; 1939.
Written prior to the start of World War Two, this novel was almost a precursor to advise the general public of what could happen should war break out.
Solicitor Peter Corbett lives with his wife Joan and three children (one of whom is a baby) in a middle-class suburb of Southampton. As the story opens, the family has slept in their garage at the bottom of the garden after a surprise bombing raid on the city during the night by an unidentified enemy. It becomes apparent that many other English towns and cities have been similarly targeted overnight and the after-effects in the short term are quite devastating - no gas or electricity, no sewage and water systems and shortage of basic supplies, in particular milk for the baby. Yet what seems to affect Peter's wife Joan most of all is the daily maid not turning up for work and their live-in maid leaving to be with her own family!
Reading this book today, some of the comments and views are quite laughable and indeed made me chuckle derisively - deciding that they need to dig a trench in the back garden as she makeshift air-raid shelter, Peter's wife doesn't want him to dig up the lawn in case it will be difficult to restore afterwards! Instead, she is willing to forgo her dahlias and they can site the trench unobtrusively against the wall - which of course could fall down on top of them, as her husband points out! And the lack of water supply prompts a question about how the children are supposed to get their nightly bath! So comical!
Anyway, as the raids intensify, damage to the infrastructure and lack of basic food and water leads the family to decide to decamp to their yacht moored in the river near Hamble, several miles away. But an initial quarantine because of an outbreak of cholera stops them leaving and, when they finally set sail for the Isle of Wight, they are not permitted to land there because of the disease at their original port of embarkation. Deciding to set off further down the south coast, with the intention of putting his wife and children on a boat to Canada, an encounter with a Royal Navy aircraft carrier sets them on a different path...
This book is very much of its time, particularly in the language, attitudes and lifestyles and the way they are described. It made me wince several times when Peter's wife was described in the text as 'the girl' rather than by her name. But, as a crystal ball-gazing exercise before the Second World War had broken out, the likelihood of extensive bombing of civilians and the effects that this would have on morale were quite accurately predicted.
This was an entertaining read with several laugh-out-loud moments which were probably deadly serious, but not in this day and age! Hence, only a 3-star rating although I do like a good Nevil Shute yarn - 6/10.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1938, just before the outbreak of WWII, this somewhat wooden and yet compelling short novel explores how indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas might play out through the eyes of one middle-class Southampton family. There had, of course, been bombing of urban areas during World War I using dirigibles. During the 1920s and 1930s, as aircraft capabilities rapidly developed, the theory of "strategic bombing" was expounded upon in various quarters -- with the bombing of civilian areas specified as a means to break enemy morale. As an aviation engineer, Shute would have been deeply familiar with these theories and the implications of how they would play out, and brought that to bear in fictional form.

The book starts with lawyer Peter Corbett, his calm and capable wife Joan sheltering with their children from an air raid on the southern coast of England by an unnamed enemy. The first third of the book covers the initial reactions to the raids, as neighbors help each other dig shelter trenches, board up windows, and people start to realize the fragility of the potable water supply. The Corbett's have a baby who can only take milk, so the finding of milk becomes a central daily struggle. As disease breaks out and bombings continue, they decide that staying in town is not an option.

Fortunately, they have a small yacht in a nearby town, and the middle third of the book finds them setting up house on the yacht and trying to figure out the logistics of their new life. Water, food, and milk continue to be a problem, and there's a certain "what would the reader do in their shoes" vibe to it all. With little to no news available and no end in sight, they decide that getting to Canada is the safest thing for the family. The final third of the book follows their attempt to sail to somewhere they can book passage on a trans-Atlantic ship, with some mild adventures along the way.

All in all, it's almost more of a manual of comportment in a crisis than a novel. Peter and Joan work seamlessly to meet the family's needs, and they are aided by a slew of helpful people: their tradesman neighbor, the friendly doctor, a nice barman, a grateful Naval officer, a good-natured customs official, and so on. I kept expecting some nastiness to come up, but other than a greedy profiteer, everyone is humane and decent. Readers who enjoy a "what would I do in a crisis" plot might enjoy it, or those with a particular interest in World War II, otherwise it's a pretty minor Shute work.

Note: In American this was published under the title "Ordeal"

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1938, What Happened to the Corbetts uses the facts of bombing of civilian cities during the Spanish civil war, moving events to the UK south coast.

What Happened to the Corbetts is a miniature future-war novel. There are no battles, no showdowns with looters or vigilante mobs. There is the constant fear of nightly bombing. 

All utilities in town fail. Milk no longer makes it to market, which is hard for the Corbets, given their newborn daughter. In a novel of about 250 pages, the word milk appears 124 times.

The homeless filter out of the city, where scarcity and absence of utilities is more pronounced. After a few days, typhoid and cholera appear and begin to make progress.

The Corbetts leave their bomb-damaged house and head for their modest yacht ("which he had bought sixteenth-hand"), moored on a river near a village. They quickly find water is from private wells or a reservoir where refugees have camped. No water and milk is scarce; a local shopkeeper with has a crate of infant formula will not part with it for love or money. The Corbett infant goes through a week of hell before it's parents realize they have to turn to theft gunpoint. 

***
Shute quickly sketches the craft of pre-radar aerial warfare. The enemy does not bomb in formation: there are too many friendly-fire collisions at nighttime. Ground radar does not exist, so the enemy relies on dead-reckong with a newfangled sextant. 

Rumors from fellow civilians and members of the services do not spell out any "why are we fighting" stuff.

In Shute's 1938, the new war is solely in aerial war. There's no engage with low countries, no dash for paris, no preparations for an invasion of the UK itself. Shute keeps the reader's focus on the Corbetts: close-up, low-angle, so deep in the thick of it with them that we can small it.

***
What Happened to the Corbetts is a lesson in non-preparadness. A night of random bombing on the south coast leads to the collapse of social infrastructure across the region. Logistics fails immediately. There are deaths aplenty, including one very close up and very early in the novel. 

Shute's greatest accomplishment here is recalling to the reader what it is like to spend any time in a room with a hungry baby. Being a parent is being an expert at immediate logistics. When the bigger logistic frameworks fail, the parent sees their plans, routines, and safeguards go with the wind.