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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Men Against the Sea
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Chapter I
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This day my good friend William Elphinstone was laid to rest, in the Lutheran churchyard on the east bank of the river, not five cable-lengths from the hospital. Mr. Sparling, Surgeon-General of Batavia, helped me into the boat, and two of his Malay servants were waiting on the bank, with a litter to convey me to the grave.
Two others of our little company, worn out by the hardships of the voyage, and easy victims to the climate of Java, have preceded Elphinstone to the churchyard. They were men of humble birth, but Elphinstone should be well content to lie beside them, for they were Englishmen worthy of the name. Lenkletter was one of the Bounty’s quartermasters, and Hall a cook. Mr. Sparling had dosed them with bark and wine, doing everything in his power to save their lives; but they had been through too much. Mr. Fryer, the master, Cole, the boatswain, and two midshipmen, Hayward and Tinkler, were rowed four miles up the river to attend the funeral.