The book is intended for readers aged 10-12 years and (imagine this!) at the back of the book young readers are asked questions 'to test silent reading'.
An excerpt:
…we tramped forward with some heart, forgetting our past trials in the hope of speedy succour. More even than food, we longed for water; but we could find none. We toiled on, often having to stop from utter weakness, staggering like so many drunken men, racked with pain in every limb. Most of us had very little clothing; and the majority of us had kicked off our boots as I had done, to secure a last chance if we had been cast into the sea. Our feet were frozen and wounded; and altogether our plight was truly miserable.
By afternoon we were hungry - so hungry that we felt maddened. We had noticed a certain species of seabird called mollyhawks nested on the island in vast numbers. It did not prove a very hard task to get some of the birds but there was no way of cooking them; we could only skin them and eat them raw, tearing their warm flesh with our teeth.
Night came and still we had not found our longed for depot. We were so utterly exhausted that we had not the strength to try to crawl an inch. We just lay down full length on the mud and let the rain beat upon us, and wind howl around us; whilst from below we could hear the angry roar of the sea.
What a night of suffering that was…. As the light grew stronger the mist lifted and drifted away, and we were free to continue our journey once more.
Wet, covered with mud, the most pitiable objects that ever were seen, we staggered on, helping each other up when we fell, not making a mile an hour, but never giving up, urged on by the inspiring thought that at the end of the march we should find food and the means of getting a fire.
Now we were travelling over sharp, rocky ground which cut and wounded our feet until we left a trail of blood behind us; and then we would be going through long, rank grass, sinking up to our ankles in liquid mud. And so we went on, on, up and up, ever drawing nearer to the summit of the mountain, crawling at last on hands and knees - on and on, until at last the goal was reached, and we stood casting eager eyes around.
But why do those groans of bitter disappointment escape our lips, and why do we stare so wildly into each other's haggard faces? Oh, the bitter mockery of it! All our hard, wearisome, agonising climb had been for nothing! We were not on Auckland Island at all! That lay far away, with six miles of angry, fiercely-running sea between us and it.
We were on a bleak, barren island about three miles long and two wide. No trace of water, no sign of life of any sort could we see! All silence, all mountain, and scrub and loneliness, and all around the waves which, if we had escaped them, would now shut us in to die of starvation. We did not know the name of the island then, yet in our minds we named it aright - it was indeed Disappointment Island!
