Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

8 страница из 86

"Aye aye, sir," said Hubbard.

Hubbard was marking on the traverse board the speed and course.

"What's the speed?"

"Five knots and a bit more, sir." Even when Hubbard was shouting into a gale his voice bore the faint echo of the South Carolina which had given him birth.

The Delaware was showing her good points, doing five knots close-hauled under staysails and close-reefed topsails alone--the Baltimore shipwrights who built her away back in 1800 had left their impress on the shape of her hull, despite the specifications of the Navy Department. Five knots, and it would be more when they had weathered Elm Point and brought the wind abeam. High water at Montauk Point was at two a.m. Peabody stood with the wind whistling round him and the snow banking against his chest while he continued his calculations. In a blizzard like this he could be fairly certain that the British squadron would be blown out to sea; if not, it was so dark that he could hope to get through unobserved. In these conditions his ship was in a hundred times greater danger from the navigational difficulties than from the enemy, and it was only then, as he bitterly realised, that he stood any chance of getting to sea at all.