16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
to be nineteen years of age', you know. Besides,
I shall be nineteen in time, of course,
particularly if we go on at this pace; and I
have my proper certificates of sea-time served.
No. The thing that worried me was that since I
am now only a tripod rather than a quadrupod,
they might be doubtful about passing
me. So I have to have everything on my side.
These calm days I have been copying out my
journals fair – you have to show them up, you
know – and in the night it suddenly occurred
to me that it would be a brilliant stroke and
amaze the captains, was I to add some seamanlike
details in French.'
'Sure it could not fail to do so.'
'So I thought if I took Colin, one of the Franklins
in my division, a decent fellow and prime
seaman though he has scarcely a word of
English, on to the forecastle in the first dog,
shall we say, sir, and pointed to everything be-