Legendary Skipper

THE CAPTAIN by Jan de Hartog. 434 pages. Atheneum. $5.95.

In Holland's ocean-going tugboat fleet, they tell some beguiling yarns about a young captain, name of Martinus Harinxma. Once, lost in a fog in a minefield, he unerringly determined his ship's position by tasting a sample of sea bottom brought up by the lead; while towing the Shah of Persia's yacht to the Caspian Sea via Russia, he smuggled two girls aboard at Stockholm and kept an orgy going in the Shah's big oval bed during the crossing to Leningrad.

So much for the legends. The hero of this good, old-fashioned adventure novel wishes that they were true. He poses as a tough, sardonic young bastard, but he is really a shy and gentle man who thinks long thoughts about almost everything. When walking a ship's bridge, he is always congealed with anxiety--and always amazed when he performs superbly.

Novelist-Playwright De Hartog (The Distant Shore, The Fourposter) makes Skipper Harinxma the most intriguing ship's officer since Horatio Hornblower. This is surprising in some ways, for the hero's trials occur on the well-plowed Murmansk run during World War II. Moreover, the author nearly scuttles his story whenever his captain heads for shore, particularly in one farfetched episode in which Martinus beds down with the wife of a dead shipmate. But De Hartog's descriptions of prowling U-boats and fear-swept sea combat are adroit and chilling, as vivid as Very-lights on a starless night.

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