Bread upon the Waters
"Bread upon the Waters" | |
---|---|
Short story by Rudyard Kipling | |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Short story |
Publication |
"Bread upon the Waters" is a short story by Rudyard Kipling, which first appeared in the London Graphic in December 1895.[1] It was later published in The Day's Work (1898). The title derives from Ecclesiastes 11:1 - "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days". It was originally illustrated by Sir Frank Brangwyn.[2]
Plot
The story is narrated by Kipling as a friend of the protagonist, McPhee. Kipling had formerly known McPhee as the chief engineer of the Breslau, a vessel of the shipping firm of Holdock, Steiner and Chase. Visiting him years later, he finds McPhee has come into a great fortune, and learns his story:
In a bid to gain custom and save money, the company decided to decrease their running time across the Atlantic; McPhee, rightly seeing this as senseless risk of lives, protested and was sacked in consequence. He was then employed by the manager of a rival firm, McRimmon of McNaughton and McRimmon.
When McPhee discovered that his old firm had stopped repairing their ships, and reported to his new employer that their Grotkau, or Hoor of Babylon as he termed her, was setting to sea with a cracked propeller-shaft, McRimmon sent him out in one of his own steamers to follow the Hoor.
As expected, the ship got into difficulties, and signaled a nearby liner to rescue them. As the liner was not allowed to tow the ship, McPhee and his crew waited darkly in the background until the vessel had been cleared; then, abandoned, the Hoor was salvage at the mercy of the first comer.
McPhee towed the vessel to England, finding on the way that someone, probably disgusted at the squalid conditions aboard and preferring to abandon ship, had purposefully opened the turncocks and flooded the engine room. On McPhee's return to shore with the hulk and her valuable cargo, he and his wife received twenty-five thousand pounds sterling, and left the oceans.[2]
McRimmon's anti-Semitism is evident in the story. He refers to the Jewish director of the old firm, Steiner, as "Judeeas Apella"[3] and "yon conversational Hebrew", and the firm Holdock, Steiner and Chase as "that Jew-firm". The lack of maintenance of the Grotkau is attributed entirely to Steiner, the other directors being under his influence. McRimmon says, "There’s more discernment in a dog than a Jew."
References
External links
"Bread upon the Waters" Online text at the University of Adelaide
- v
- t
- e
- The Light That Failed (1891)
- The Naulahka: A Story of West and East (co-author, Wolcott Balestier, 1892)
- Captains Courageous (1896)
- Kim (1901)
- Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
- Soldiers Three (1888)
- The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
- In Black and White (1888)
- The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (1888)
- Under the Deodars (1888)
- Wee Willie Winkie and Other Child Stories (1888)
- From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel (1889)
- Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, poetry)
- Many Inventions (1893)
- The Jungle Book (1894)
- "Mowgli's Brothers"
- "Kaa's Hunting"
- "Tiger! Tiger!"
- "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"
- The Second Jungle Book (1895)
- "Letting in the Jungle"
- "Red Dog"
- All the Mowgli Stories (c. 1895)
- The Seven Seas (1896, poetry)
- The Day's Work (1898)
- Stalky & Co. (1899)
- Just So Stories (1902)
- The Five Nations (1903, poetry)
- Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
- Rewards and Fairies (1910)
- The Fringes of the Fleet (1915, non-fiction)
- Debits and Credits (1926)
- Limits and Renewals (1932)
- Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (1940)
- A Choice of Kipling's Verse (by T. S. Eliot, 1941)
- "The Absent-Minded Beggar"
- "The Ballad of the 'Clampherdown'"
- "The Ballad of East and West"
- "The Beginnings"
- "The Bell Buoy"
- "The Betrothed"
- "Big Steamers"
- "Boots"
- "Cold Iron"
- "Dane-geld"
- "Danny Deever"
- "A Death-Bed"
- "The Female of the Species"
- "Fuzzy-Wuzzy"
- "Gentleman ranker"
- "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"
- "Gunga Din"
- "Hymn Before Action"
- "If—"
- "In the Neolithic Age"
- "The King's Pilgrimage"
- "The Last of the Light Brigade"
- "The Lowestoft Boat"
- "Mandalay"
- "The Mary Gloster"
- "McAndrew's Hymn"
- "My Boy Jack"
- "Recessional"
- "A Song in Storm"
- "The Sons of Martha"
- "Submarines"
- "The Sweepers"
- "Tommy"
- "Ubique"
- "The White Man's Burden"
- ".007"
- "The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly"
- "Baa Baa, Black Sheep"
- "Bread upon the Waters"
- "The Broken-Link Handicap"
- "The Butterfly that Stamped"
- "Consequences"
- "The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin"
- "Cupid's Arrows"
- "The Devil and the Deep Sea"
- "The Drums of the Fore and Aft"
- "Fairy-Kist"
- "False Dawn"
- "A Germ-Destroyer"
- "His Chance in Life"
- "His Wedded Wife"
- "In the House of Suddhoo"
- "Kidnapped"
- "Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris"
- "Lispeth"
- "The Man Who Would Be King"
- "A Matter of Fact"
- "Miss Youghal's Sais"
- "The Mother Hive"
- "The Other Man"
- "The Rescue of Pluffles"
- "The Ship that Found Herself"
- "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo"
- "The Taking of Lungtungpen"
- "Three and – an Extra"
- "The Three Musketeers"
- "Thrown Away"
- "Toomai of the Elephants"
- "Watches of the Night"
- "Wireless"
- "Yoked with an Unbeliever"
- Bibliography
- Bateman's (house)
- Indian Railway Library
- Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer
- Law of the jungle
- Aerial Board of Control
- My Boy Jack (1997 play)
- Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale (2006 documentary)
- My Boy Jack (2007 film)
- Caroline Starr Balestier Kipling (wife)
- Elsie Bambridge (daughter)
- John Kipling (son)
- John Lockwood Kipling (father)
- MacDonald sisters (mother's family)
- Stanley Baldwin (cousin)
- Georgiana Burne-Jones (aunt)
- Edward Burne-Jones (uncle)
- Philip Burne-Jones (cousin)
- Edward Poynter (uncle)
- Alfred Baldwin (uncle)