16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
might carry the barky more briskly to the high
south latitudes.
Some of the knowledge derived from the obvious
fact that the Doctor, though incapable
of telling a barque from a ship or a bowline
from a midshipman's hitch, was not as simple
as he looked – that indeed would have been
difficult – and that he did not spend all his
time on shore in bowsing up his jib or inspecting
ladies in their shifts, but sometimes picked
up valuable news: yet this did not account for
the 'two or three China ships out of Boston' or
the 'south of Diego Ramírez' that could so often
be heard on the lower deck, together with
the calculation that a steady five knots from
noon to noon, day after day, would get them
there with time and to spare, which could only
come from deliberate eavesdropping or very
close attention to all possible clues, such as
the Captain's poring over his charts of the