16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
Boccherini he added, 'I may see little of you in
the morning: we shall spend much of our time
exercising the great guns. But you will never
forget that I am to be your guest for dinner in
the gunroom, I am sure.' Nothing could have
been less certain. Dr Maturin had been so engrossed
in the preliminary unpacking, sorting,
registering, cleaning and roughly preserving
the collections that had come aboard from the
balsa that he was perfectly capable of forgetting
all ordinary duties other than those of the
sick-berth, and all social decencies. 'He is also
capable of supposing that the ship's company
is still much as he left it,' reflected Jack, and at
the end of the movement he said, 'I believe
you have not dined in the gunroom yet?'
'I have not,' said Stephen. 'With the sick-berth
and my collections to sort, I have scarcely
been on deck, either, or asked half my shipmates
how they do. You cannot readily con-