BENEATH THE WIND

A debut by the daughter of one of Phillie's first families that tells the story of a grand circumnavigation of the globe aboard a yacht—the Alcedo—in 1903. The vessel is owned by Martin Axthelm—a wealthy industrialist known as ``the Turk,'' who sends his youngest son, George, off on the Alcedo as a tenth wedding anniversary present—or so George's wife, Eugenia, thinks. The truth is somewhat more convoluted, since the Alcedo's hold is full of Springfield rifles, half of which are to be given to a sultan on the oil-rich north coast of Borneo to help him quell an insurrection in his tropical kingdom. Only George and two Axthelm lackeys, Ogden Beckmann and Lieutenant James Brown, know that the rest of the guns will go to Mahomet Seh, the Malaysian pirate at the head of the rebellion—the Turk hopes that, in the ensuing chaos, he'll be able to pocket control of Borneo's oil. Eugenia remains blissfully unaware of the voyage's secret agenda, though she spins her own web of deceit by becoming romantically involved with Lieutenant Brown, who turns out to be a mercenary hired by the Turk to teach Seh's men how to use the guns. Still, it's hard to feel sorry for the cuckolded George—a wretchedly ineffectual man with a penchant for the brandy flask. Midway across the Indian Ocean, Brown bumps off Beckmann to keep him from revealing the affair, but the real tragedy comes when the Alcedo reaches Borneo and little Paul Axthelm, George and Eugenia's son, gets caught in the crossfire between the sultan's men and the rebels. Biddle has approached her material with intelligence and tenderness, but her characters are all too gutless to care much about, and the pace is painfully slow. Full sail, no breeze.