Treason’s Harbour. Patrick O’Brian

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      1 Flying jib

      2 Jib

      3 Fore topmast staysail

      4 Fore staysail

      5 Foresail, or course

      6 Fore topsail

      7 Fore topgallant

      8 Mainstaysail

      9 Main topmast staysail

      10 Middle staysail

      11 Main topgallant staysail

      12 Mainsail, or course

      13 Maintopsail

      14 Main topgallant

      15 Mizzen staysail

      16 Mizzen topmast staysail

      17 Mizzen topgallant staysail

      18 Mizzen sail

      19 Spanker

      20 Mizzen topsail

      21 Mizzen topgallant

      Illustration source: Serres, Liber Nauticus. Courtesy of The Science and Technology Research Center, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation

      Chapter One

      A gentle breeze from the north-east after a night of rain, and the washed sky over Malta had a particular quality in its light that sharpened the lines of the noble buildings, bringing out all the virtue of the stone; the air too was a delight to breathe, and the city of Valletta was as cheerful as though it were fortunate in love or as though it had suddenly heard good news.

      This was more than usually remarkable in a group of naval officers sitting in the bowered court of Searle’s hotel: to be sure, they looked out upon the arcaded Upper Baracca, filled with soldiers, sailors and civilians pacing slowly up and down in a sunlight so brilliant that it made even the black hoods the Maltese women wore look gay, while the officers’ uniforms shone like splendid flowers – a cosmopolitan crowd, for although most of the colour was the scarlet and gold of the British army many of the nations engaged in the war against Napoleon were represented and the shell-pink of Kresimir’s Croats, for example, made a charming contrast with the Neapolitan hussars’ silver-laced blue. And then beyond and below the Baracca there was the vast sweep of the Grand Harbour, pure sapphire today, flecked with the sails of countless small craft plying between Valletta and the great fortified headlands on the other side, St Angelo and Isola, and the men-of-war, the troopships and the victuallers, a sight to please any sailor’s heart.

      Yet on the other hand all these gentlemen were captains without ships, a mumchance, melancholy class in general and even more so at this time, when the long, long war seemed to be working up to its climax, when competition was even stronger than before, and when distinction and worthwhile appointments, to say nothing of prize-money and promotion, depended on having a sea-going command. Some were absolutely shipless, either because their vessels had sunk under them, which was the case with Edward Long’s archaic Aeolus, or because promotion had set them ashore, or because an unfortunate court-martial had done the same. Most however were only grass-widowers; their ships, СКАЧАТЬ