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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Dawn was at hand, and the people in the town were stirring out of their houses, when we saw him approaching with two of his officers and the man who had carried our message. Captain Bligh stood up in the stern sheets. His clothing was a mass of rags revealing his frightfully emaciated limbs; his haggard, bony face was covered with a month’s growth of beard; but he held himself as erect as though he were standing on the Bounty’s quarter-deck.

“Captain Spikerman?” he called.

For a few seconds the little group on shore stared at us in silence. Captain Spikerman stepped forward. “At your service, sir,” he replied.

“Captain Bligh, of His Majesty’s armed transport Bounty. We are in need of assistance, sir. I will be grateful indeed if you will secure us permission to land.”

“You may come ashore at once, Captain Bligh. I can vouch for the governor’s permission. Your boat may be brought directly to the beach.”

“Haul in the grapnel, Mr. Cole. Two men at the oars.” Tinkler and Hayward hauled it in, Cole coiling the line neatly as they did so. Peckover and Purcell took the oars, and the launch proceeded on the last fifty yards of a voyage of more than three thousand, six hundred miles. “Easy, Mr. Cole! Don’t let her touch!”