Books: Sailor at Sea

.A PRIVATE STAIR (183 pp.)—David Loughlin—Harper ($2.50).

Southeast Asia is old Joseph Conrad country. There are still a few stories to be picked up out that way, and young (29) Novelist David Loughlin is just the man to try. His hero, DeCarlo, ship's electrician of the Nicaragua Victory, shows how much, and how little, times have changed.

DeCarlo was the kind of sailor who would have given Conrad a Bronx cheer; that is, if DeCarlo had read books. He had sailed a lot, but had really "never traveled." He had "America lashed onto him like a rucksack and he spread it out in...