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Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe’s Trafalgar, Sharpe’s Prey, Sharpe’s Rifles. Bernard Cornwell
Читать онлайн.Название Sharpe 3-Book Collection 3: Sharpe’s Trafalgar, Sharpe’s Prey, Sharpe’s Rifles
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007454679
Автор произведения Bernard Cornwell
Жанр Приключения: прочее
Издательство HarperCollins
‘Sir?’ The midshipman looked pale.
‘I will trouble you, Mister Collier, to take this notebook and pencil and to make a copy of any signals you see this day.’
‘Aye aye, sir!’ Collier said, taking the book and pencil from Chase.
Lieutenant Connors, the signal lieutenant, overheard the order from his place on the poop deck. He looked offended. He was an intelligent young man, quiet, red-haired and conscientious, and Chase, seeing his unhappiness, climbed to him. ‘I know that logging the signals is your responsibility, Tom,’ he said quietly, ‘but I don’t want young Collier brooding. Keep him busy, eh? Let him think he’s doing something useful and he won’t worry so much about being killed.’
‘Of course, sir,’ Connors said. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Good fellow,’ Chase said, slapping Connors’s back, then he ran back down to the quarterdeck and stared at the Conqueror which had just completed her turn. ‘There goes Pellew now!’ he cried. ‘See how well his fellows spread their wings?’ The Conqueror’s studdingsails, projecting far outboard on either side of her huge square sails, fell to catch the small wind and were sheeted home.
‘It’s a race now,’ Chase said, ‘and the devil take the foremost. Lively now! Lively!’ He was shouting at the men on the main yard who had been slow to release the Pucelle’s studdingsail yards, and doubtless Chase was thinking that Israel Pellew, the Cornishman commanding the Conqueror, would be watching him critically, but the yards were run out handily enough and, the eastwards turn completed, the sails fell with a great slap and flap before the men on deck hauled them tight. The enemy was still hull down on the horizon and the wind scarce more than a whisper. ‘It’ll be a long haul,’ Chase said ruefully, ‘a long, long haul. Are you sure there are no more coffee beans?’ he asked his steward.
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