Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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But she was low in the water. He had crammed her with all the stores she would hold before setting out in his determination to make her as independent as possible. There were six months' stores on board. There were fifty tons of shot, and twenty of powder. There were fifteen tons of water--he could relieve the Delaware of that fifteen tons in a few minutes by merely starting the hogsheads and setting the hands to work at the pumps. On the spar deck there were eighteen carronades weighing a ton and a half each, and it would not be difficult with tackles to heave them over the side. But powder and shot, guns and drinking water were what gave the Delaware her usefulness in war. Without them he would be forced into port as surely as if he had been crippled in action.

"Mr. Hubbard!"

"Sir!"

"Rig the tackles. I want the longboat and cutter hove overside."

"Aye aye, sir."

Longboat and cutter were on chocks amidships. Whips had to be rove at the fore and main yardarms at either side, and Peabody watched four hands running out along the yards to do so, bending to their work perched fifty feet up above the tormented sea. If any man of them lost his hold, that man was dead as surely as if he had been shot--the Delaware would not stop to pick him up even if he survived the fall into the icy sea. But the lines were passed without accident, and fifty men tailed on to them under the direction of Mr. Rodgers, the boatswain. Tackles and boats were his particular province; even when boats were being thrown away it was his duty to attend to the matter at the First Lieutenant's orders. At the last moment there was a hitch--young Midshipman Wallingford came running aft to his captain.