16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
age, not heart's content as you might say, but
middling. And off the Chinchas at break of
day, there was a four-masted ship directly to
windward. Man-of-war fashion. The master
said, 'I know her, mates: she's a friend. A
Frenchman out of Bordeaux, a privateer,' and
he lay to. There was nothing else he could do,
dead to leeward of a ship of thirty-two guns
with yards like Kingdom Come and the black
flag flying at her masthead. But as we lay
there he walked fore and aft, gnawing his fingers
and saying, 'Jeeze, I hope he remembers
me. God Almighty, I hope he remembers me.
Chuck' – that was his mate and aunt's own
child – 'Likely he'll remember us, don't you
reckon?'
'Well, he did remember us. He hauled down
his black flag and we lay alongside one another,
matey-matey. He asked after the Liverpool
ship and we told him she would be out of