16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
and with her astonishing spread of drum-tight
canvas the Surprise was now running at such
a pace that the following seas lapped idly
alongside. From high aloft Jack made out the
confused situation with fair certainty: the ships
were still grappled fast: the Alastors had
boarded the Franklin's waist but Tom had run
up stout close-quarters and some of his people
were holding out behind them while others
had invaded the Alastor's forecastle and were
fighting the Frenchmen there. Some of the
Alastors were still trying to cast off, and still the
Franklins prevented them – Jack could see the
bearded Sethians in the furious struggle that
flung three Frenchmen bodily off the lashed
bowsprits. Another group of pirates were turning
one of the Franklin's forward carronades
aft to blast a way through the close-quarters;
but the mob of their own men and deadly
musket-fire from their own forecastle hindered