16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
succession, as well as running in the jibboom,
making all fast and double-griping the
boats.
'A pretty halfwit I may look, if the poor souls
have to sway them up again tomorrow,' said
Jack in a low voice. 'But when I was very
young I had such a lesson about not getting
your upper masts down on deck in plenty of
time – such a lesson! Now we are on deck I
could tell you about it, pointing out the various
ropes and spars.'
'That would give me the utmost pleasure,'
said Stephen.
'It was when I was coming back from the
Cape in the Minerva, a very wet ship, Captain
Soules: once we were north of the line we had
truly miserable weather, a whole series of
gales from the westward. But the day after
Christmas the wind grew quite moderate and