Eagle Special Investigator MacDonald Hastings begins with MacDonald explaining how the book
came about. He states: "In his heart of hearts, I think Marcus Morris was always sorry that I
didn't kill myself. For your sake, too, I'm sorry that this book hasn't a more bloodthirsty
ending". And so begins a series of reports on adventures which were first published in the
Eagle Comics and also in Eagle Annual Number One as Real Life
Adventures.
Original Price : Unknown
Published by : Michael Joseph Ltd, London in 1953
Author : MacDonald Hastings
Dimensions : 14cm x 22cm with 215 pages.
Selected highlights:
- 'Difficulties are made to be overcome,' said the Editor firmly. 'As the Eagle's investigator, you must obviously make a journey to the sea-bed.'
- "I'm coming with you," he said. "My job is to get the pictures of you when you drown."
- Like the fool I am, I said it was jolly decent of him. Unlike the horse, I didn't know what was coming to me.
- Twelve stallions rose on their hind legs and, pawing the air over my head, gave me the proudest salute I have ever had in my life.
- "I've got to fly an aeroplane." "Jolly good show," said the R.A.F. type.
- "Circuits," she said, "are the basic method of flying training. We teach you to take off and fly round the points of an imaginary square, landing on the same line you used for the take-off run."
- "The Cresta Run," he said, "is the oldest, fastest and most exciting course for tobogganers that exists in the world."
- The blades were about eleven inches long, the handled another six inches.
- A Centurion weighs 49 tons. Se we're trusting you with forty-nine thousand pounds.
- Whenever I mentioned the matter to likely-looking people in the kilt, they stared back at me as suspiciously as if I were suggesting a raid on the crown jewels.
- My face was blackened with powder and, sure enough, I'd baptized myself as a pyrotechnist by collecting a burn on my arm.
- Pull him up on the hook and then let him down on it again to the ground. "An excellent idea," said Lieutenant Breese, "let him try it both ways."
- My own ambition, ever since I was a boy, has been to find myself on the box of a Christmas car mail-coach, with four steaming horses in front, striking sparks with their hooves off the highroad.
- In fact, after the event, my greatest regret was that I didn't have a dagger to chase Umbark Ben Taharb and his Filthy Camel all the way across the desert to Baghdad or Mecca or wherever it is.
- To put up that performance they were travelling on the straight at 130m.p.h.
- Apart from finding a gold-mine, looking for bears, felling trees and driving a dog team, the round trip is about fifteen thousand miles.
- A notice outside the office hut in Copper Canyon Camp said: "YOU NEEDN'T APPLY FOR A JOB HERE UNLESS YOU'RE A SAFE WORKER." That seemed to rule me out.
- I went to sleep dreaming of sitting in the engineer's seat of the biggest single-coupled cylinder locomotive in the British Empire.
- Mincing along in his high-heeled cowboy boots, Dave led us into the corral.
- "Don't touch him," said Doug Betts quickly. "If you do, he'll have you. He's crossed with a wolf, and he's not used to the smell of a white man."
- "You're no use dressed like that," he said. "You'll need muk-luks, a duffle with wolverine fur and a Grenfell windcheater."
- "How many claims can you stake in a year?" "Six, that's all."
- "A bear?" we said together.
- So, on the whole, I suppose I oughtn't to be disappointed that we didn't catch a tunny. I ought to be grateful that the whale didn't catch me.
| CONTENTS |
|---|
| Way to Adventure |
| page 11 |
| A Dive to the Bottom of the Sea |
| page 14 |
| A Submarine Escape |
| page 25 |
| A Ride With the Household Cavalry |
| page 34 |
| In the Sawdust Ring |
| page 43 |
| A Flying Lesson |
| page 51 |
| First Solo Flight |
| page 61 |
| On the Cresta Run |
| page 72 |
| Target for a Knife-Thrower |
| page 81 |
| In the Driving Seat of a Centurion Tank |
| page 89 |
| On the Track of the Golden Eagle |
| page 98 |
| The Living Firework |
| page 108 |
| A Hook into a Helicopter |
| page 114 |
| The Ribbons of a Four-in-Hand |
| page 124 |
| An Argument With a Desert Camel |
| page 132 |
| A Dash With a Racing Car |
| page 140 |
| Flying the Atlantic |
| page 148 |
| A Logger Comes a Cropper |
| page 155 |
| At the Controls of the Trans-Canada Train |
| page 163 |
| Yippee! |
| page 171 |
| Mush! Mush! |
| page 179 |
| In Camp With a Mountie |
| page 186 |
| Gold-Mining |
| page 192 |
| A Bear Hunt |
| page 200 |
| An Encounter With a Whale |
| page 207 |
| & |
| 68 exciting photographs bewteen pages 112 and 113 |