Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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"She'll be within gunshot soon," said Murray with despair in his voice, and Peabody looked at him searchingly. He wanted no cowards in his ship, nor men who would not fight a losing battle to the end. Yet Murray had come to him with the Commodore's enthusiastic recommendation, as the man who, in command of a gunboat flotilla in the Rappahannock had beaten off the boats of the British fleet in the Chesapeake.

"Yes," said Peabody. "And I want these two twelve-pounders cleared for action. Rig double tackles on them, Mr. Murray, if you please, so that they won't come adrift."

"Aye aye, sir," said Murray. Peabody could see the change in him now that he had something to do--so that was the kind of man he was. Peabody had no definite labels for human beings, and no vocabulary with which to express his thoughts about them, but he could estimate a character pretty closely.

The Delaware's spar deck carried eighteen thirty-two-pounder carronades, nine a side, but forward and aft at the end of each row was mounted a long twelve-pounder. The Commodore at the Navy Yard had argued with Peabody about those long guns, pointing out how carronades instead would give the ship an additional forty pounds of broadside, but Peabody had been sure of what he wanted. On this raiding voyage he would either be running away or pursuing, and he wanted long guns on her upper deck to aid him in either of those tasks. He had even had the aftermost and foremost ports enlarged so as to allow these long guns to be trained fully round.