Big Wind

THE HURRICANE--Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall--Little, Brown ($2.50).

In the South Seas there is no commuting to the office, no zero weather, not one house-to-house salesman. But there are hurricanes. And even in Miami they will tell you that a hurricane is no joke. If you live on an atoll, its highest point a few feet above the water, a hurricane may well be the end of your world. Authors Nordhoff & Hall, who for the last 16 years have lived in the South Seas as exiles from civilization, write about a hurricane as two having authority. As popularizers of the epic tale of H. M. S. Bounty they have learned how to spin a stout melodramatic yarn. Plot of The Hurricane is truer to Hollywood than to life, but the details of its color and setting are firsthand, first-rate.

Terangi was an island aristocrat, a nature's nobleman and the promising mate of a trading schooner. He had been married just six weeks when one day ashore in Tahiti a drunken white man picked a fight with him. Terangi broke the boozer's jaw, was sentenced to six months in jail. Because he could not stand confinement and kept breaking out, his original sentence was soon stretched to six years. In despair, Terangi escaped once more, inadvertently killing a guard who was in his way. That meant a life-sentence in

Cayenne. But Terangi did not intend to be caught until he had seen his wife and mother once again.

In a small outrigger canoe he made the 600-mile voyage from Tahiti to Manukura, his native island, where willing hands hid him. heads were put together to plan his escape, with his wife and child, to a safe refuge. Just as everything was ready, the unattractively upright French Administrator got wind of the plot. Thinking Terangi had already left the island, he put off to sea after him. Not many hours later, the hurricane hit.

Some took shelter in the solidly-built church; some roped themselves in the branches of stout trees; some huddled in boats moored in the comparatively sheltered lagoon. Terangi. his family and the French Administrator's wife were lashed in a tree. When the hurricane had made its first passover everything but one of the boats had been swept away. Because the survivors knew the torrent of wind and water would soon be back, from the opposite direction, they abandoned the boat, clung to a heap of coral crags. Somehow they lived through the second onslaught. In even more miraculous manner so did Terangi and the more important part of his tree's crew. The grateful Administrator's wife helped him on to his interrupted escape, then fished untiringly until she pulled up a pardon.

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