16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
laxation, of mental recovery and physical
comfort; and so he lay, blinking in the early
light and musing on a wide variety of pleasant
things: Diana's kindness to him when he was
ill in Sweden; goshawks he had known; a
Boccherini 'cello sonata; whales. But a steady,
familiar, discordant noise pierced through this
amiable wandering: several times he dismissed
his identification as absurd. He had
known the Navy for many years; he was acquainted
with its excesses; but this was too
wild entirely. Yet at last the combination of
sounds, grinding, scrubbing, bucket clashing,
water streaming, swabs driving the tide into
the scuppers, bare feet padding and hoarse
whispers just over his head could no longer be
denied: the larboard watch and the idlers
were cleaning the deck, getting all the volcanic
dust and cinders from under gratings,
gun-carriages and such unlikely places as the