16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
tail of rocks as far and fast as ever she could,
sometimes making fair headway, sometimes
lying-to under storm trysails when the prodigious
southern swell compelled her to do so,
but always keeping enough sea-room for the
comfort of those aboard, every man-jack of
whom dreaded a lee-shore more than anything
in this world and perhaps the next. That
however was the only kind of comfort they
knew until at last the storm blew itself out. For
the rest of the time the ship was in very violent
motion, with green seas sweeping her deck
fore and aft, nobody turning in dry, nobody lying
warm, nobody having a hot meal and
rarely a hot drink, all hands called night after
night.
Yet the storm did blow itself out; the strong
westerlies returned, and the frigate made her
uneven way back across the southern swell cut
into frightful seas by a strong sideways blast.