16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
prisoners, and certainly they had taken no part
in the fight, having crammed themselves unarmed
into the manger or the forepeak.
All the others were his shipmates, men he
had known and liked for many voyages,
sometimes for as long as he had been in the
Navy. Bonden's great cutlass-slash, which had
called for such anxious sewing, was doing
well, but there were cases where he saw the
probable necessity for resection – foresaw it
and its dangers with a grief increased by the
seamen's total, unfounded confidence in his
powers, and by their gratitude for his treatment.
A wearing round, and it should have been
followed by his visits forward, to the little
berths where the warrant-officers slept: Mr
Smith, the gunner, was not aboard the Franklin
and Stephen had put Mr Grainger into his
place, as more suitable for a wounded man