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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A great sea lifted us high and passed under the launch, roaring and foaming on both sides. As we dropped into the calm of the trough, Mr. Bligh went on: “You see how she behaves, lads? She’ll see us through if we do our part! By God, she will! Mr. Fryer, by my reckoning, we have run eighty-six miles since leaving Tofoa.”

The wind was our friend as well as our enemy. Captain Bligh’s feeling for the launch was shared by every man of us; we were beginning to love her, now that we knew something of her qualities.

“We must have a log,” Bligh added. “Mr. Fryer, I count on you and the boatswain to provide us with a line, properly marked. Mr. Purcell, see what you can do to make us a log chip.”

When we had eaten our dinner of five small coconuts, the carpenter took apart the tray from his chest; and from its bottom—a piece of thin oaken plank—he sawed out a small triangle, about six inches on a side. One side was weighted with a bit of sheet lead, and a hole was bored at each corner. The whole made what seamen call a “chip.”