Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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It was getting on toward eight o’clock when the launch had been cast off. Shortly afterward the breeze, from the northeast, freshened, and the Bounty gathered way quietly, slipping through the water with a slight hiss of foam. The launch became a mere speck, seen momentarily as she rose to the swell or as the sunlight flashed from her oars. Within half an hour she had vanished as though swallowed up by the sea. Our course was west-northwest.

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Our company was divided, and, though linked together by a common disaster, we were not to share a common fate. I doubt whether a ship has ever sailed from England whose numbers, during the course of her voyage, were to be so widely scattered over the face of the earth, and whose individual members were to meet ends so strange and, in many cases, so tragic.

There had gone with Bligh, in the launch:—

John Fryer, MasterThomas Ledward, Acting SurgeonDavid Nelson, BotanistWilliam Peckover, GunnerWilliam Cole, BoatswainWilliam Elphinstone, Master’s MateWilliam Purcell, CarpenterThomas Hayward}John Hallet} MidshipmenRobert Tinkler}John Norton}Peter Lenkletter} QuartermastersGeorge Simpson, Quartermaster’s MateLawrence Lebogue, SailmakerMr. Samuel, ClerkRobert Lamb, ButcherJohn Smith}Thomas Hall} Cooks

Of those who remained in the Bounty, the following had taken an active part in the mutiny:—