16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
already possess, we can send up topmasts
and the pole topgallants I was telling you
about. That will be best of what breeze there
is. How I long to see her royals! I have sworn
not to touch my fiddle until they are set.'
'You are in a great hurry to reach Peru, I
find.'
'Of course I am. So would you be, could you
see our bread-room, our spirit-room, reckon
up our water and count our pork and beef
casks, with all these new hands aboard.
Above all our water. We had no time to fill at
Moahu, or the Franklin would have run clear.
And she having pumped all hers over the side,
we are now in a sad way. There is only one
thing for it: no fresh water will be allowed for
washing clothes or anything else: only a small
ration for drinking – no scuttle-butts standing
about – and a minimum for the steep-tubs to
get what salt off the pork and beef that towing