16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
Jack, who loved the fine-work of gunnery, disabling
an opponent from a distance before
bearing down and boarding him, carried them
chiefly as ballast, bringing them up only when
he contemplated a cutting-out expedition,
dashing into a harbour and blazing away at
nearby batteries and the like while the boats
set about their prey. Or on an occasion such
as this, when the disarmed Franklin could be
equipped with a two-hundred-and-forty-pound
broadside.
'If this weather continues,' said Jack ' – and
the glass is perfectly steady – the Franklin
should soon be a very useful consort: and we
are, after all, getting somewhat nearer the
path of merchantmen, to say nothing of roving
whalers.'
'I wish it may go on,' said Stephen. 'The temperature
in Paradise must have been very like
this.'