16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
to stir: the ship came to a muted sort of life.
'Three knots, sir, if you please,' reported young
Wedell, now an acting midshipman. And in
the usual piping, calling, hurrying sounds of
the change – all fairly discreet at four o'clock
in the morning – Stephen slipped away to his
cabin. There was something curiously pleasing
about the Knipperdollings' credulity, he reflected
as he lay there with his hands behind
his head: an amiable simplicity: and he was
still smiling when he went to sleep.
To sleep, but not for long. Presently the idlers
were called, and they joined the watch in the
daily ritual of cleaning the decks, pumping
floods of sea-water over them, sanding, holystoning
and swabbing them, flogging them dry
by the rising of the sun. There were hardened
sailors who could sleep through all this – Jack
Aubrey was one, and he could be heard snoring
yet – but Stephen was not. On this occa-