16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
those employed in shoving-off, she received
some wicked strokes from thick, deepswimming
floes, and several times the highperched
Jack Aubrey trembled for his nest –
literally trembled with extreme cold, weariness
and the grave tension of guiding his ship
through this potentially mortal maze: he was
no longer a young man.
By the strange sunrise he was older still: a
sun rising in a clear sky that presently grew
light sapphire blue, while the sea took on a
deeper tinge and the ice-islands showed at
some points pure rosy pink and at others
bright ultramarine. But there, at seven miles or
less, considerably farther south, lay the dogged
American. In this light her hull looked
black; and she had already begun to set more
sail.
Jack swung over the side of the crow's nest,
and as he gripped the topmost shrouds his