16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
room should be preserved: useless, because
Jack Aubrey belonged to an older Navy in
which a collier's mate like James Cook could
die a much-honoured post-captain, and a
foremast-hand like William Mitchell might begin
his career by being flogged round the fleet
and end it as a vice-admiral, rather than to
the modern service, in which an officer had
not only to pass for lieutenant but also for
gentleman if he were to advance.
Dr Maturin and his assistant had the usual
seamen's diseases to treat and a few wounds
to dress, not from the recent battle, which had
been a mere point-blank butchery of an enemy
caught in a narrow rocky defile, but from
the wear and tear of dragging guns up and
down a jungly mountainside. They also had
one interesting case of a sailor who, less surefooted
by land than by sea, had fallen on to
the pointed end of a cut bamboo, which let air