16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
eat while we can.'
The other sea-creatures were of the same
opinion. The launch was now in the middle of
the northward-flowing Peruvian current and
for some reason the animalculae that lived
there had begun one of those immense increases
in population that can colour the
whole sea red or make it as turbid as peasoup.
The anchovies, blind with greed, devoured
huge quantities; medium-sized fishes
and squids ate the anchovies with reckless
abandon, scarcely aware that they themselves
were being preyed upon by fishes much larger
than themselves, the bonitoes and their kind,
by sea-lions, by great flights of pelicans, boobies,
cormorants, gulls and a singularly beautiful
tern, while agile penguins raced along
just beneath the surface.
The launch's crew spent most of the forenoon
making all fast, sending up preventer stays