16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
surprised when a top-maul fell upon Mr Bentley's
foot early the next morning. The wound
was not dangerous but it confined the carpenter
to his cot for a while and in the mean time
his crew, most unhappily, fell out with the carpenter
from the Franklin. The privateer had
taken him from a Hull whaler and he spoke a
Yorkshire dialect almost entirely incomprehensible
to the west-country hands from
Shelmerston, who looked upon him with dislike
and suspicion as little better than a foreigner,
a French dog or a Turk.
Work therefore went forward slowly, and not
only work on the mast but the innumerable
tasks that waited on its erection; and with an
equal or even greater deliberation the two
ships moved over the quiet sea through this
perfect picnic weather. In spite of his eagerness
to be in South America it pleased
Stephen, who spread himself naked in the sun