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
353 страница из 953
The twenty-eighth of August was a dismal day of alternate calms and black squalls which greatly increased the dangers of navigation. Looking from my knot-hole at dawn, I saw that we were in the midst of a labyrinth of reefs and shoals upon which the sea broke with great violence. The frigate had been hove-to during the night, and now one of the boats, with Lieutenant Corner in command, had gone ahead to seek for a possible passage. We could see little of what was taking place, but the orders continually shouted from the quarter-deck indicated only too clearly the difficulties in which the ship found herself. Once, as we wore about, we passed within half a cable’s length of as villainous a reef as ever brought a sailor’s heart into his mouth.
So it went all that day, and as evening drew on it was apparent that we were in greater danger than we had been at dawn. The launch was still far in advance of us, and a gun was fired as a signal for her to return. Darkness fell swiftly. False fires were burned and muskets fired to indicate our position to the launch. The musket fire was answered from the launch, and as the reports became more distinct we knew that she was slowly approaching. All this while the leadsmen were continually sounding, finding no bottom at one hundred and ten fathoms; but soon we heard them calling depths again: fifty fathoms, forty, thirty-six, twenty-two. Immediately upon calling this latter depth the ship was put about, but before the tacks were hauled on board and the sails trimmed, the frigate struck, and every man in the roundhouse was thrown sprawling to the length of his chain.