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

306 страница из 953

ssss1

During the next four days, Stewart, Coleman, Skinner, and I were conscious of little save our own misery. A frigate’s orlop deck is a foul place in which to be confined at any time, and with the ship at anchor, in the lee of a tropical island, the heat and stench were scarcely to be endured. Our sentinels were changed every two hours, and I remember with what longing we watched the departing guard returning to the freshness of the open air. Food was brought to us morning and evening, and only thus were we able to distinguish night from day, for no sunlight penetrated to our quarters. Our victuals were the rancid salt beef and hard bread which the Pandora had carried all the way from England, with never an addition of the fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables which the island furnished in such abundance. But more than food we craved fresh air and the luxury of movement. Our leg irons were made fast to ringbolts in the planking, and although we could rise to our feet, we could take no more than one short step in either direction.