16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
constitution. Go and fetch fresh water – it will
be to be had by now – warm if ever the galley
is lit, two sponges, two towels, and clean
sheets from the chest by my bed. Ask Killick for
those that were last washed in fresh.'
'Salt and worse on a sensitive mind; an unhappy
mind,' he added to himself. Leprosy he
had seen often enough; eczemas of course
and prickly heat carried to the extreme, but
never anything quite like this. There were
many things about Martin's state that he could
not make out; and although analogies kept
flitting through his mind like clues to the solution
of a puzzle, none would settle or cling to
its fellows.
Padeen returned and they washed Martin
with warm fresh water all over twice, then laid
on sweet oil wherever it would do good,
wrapping him at last naked in a clean sheet:
no nightshirt was called for in this steady