The Road to Samarcand. Patrick O’Brian

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СКАЧАТЬ dry land. Derrick sank down and savoured the delight of breathing air that was not mixed with sea: he suddenly felt extremely weak. His uncle was speaking to him, shouting, but he could not hear, and he found that the infernal howling on deck had deafened him. Sullivan helped him off with his oilskins, pointed to a bunk, to the clock, held up four fingers, and went.

      By the madly swaying light Derrick saw that the clock said half-past two. ‘It can’t be right,’ he thought. ‘It must be …’but before he could even finish the thought he was asleep.

      ‘It’s not half-past two,’ he exclaimed, waking suddenly, as someone shook him by the arm.

      ‘No,’ said Li Han, ‘this person did not suggest it was.’

      After hours of labour Li Han had managed to get a fire going in the galley, and the steaming mug of cocoa that he held out to Derrick was the result of his efforts. Derrick collected his wits as he sipped the sweet, scalding liquid. He felt horribly sore and stiff all over, as if he had been put through a clothes-wringer. There was a deep gash on the back of his left hand – he had never noticed it at the time – and one of his front teeth was gone. But the cocoa was wonderfully good: he had never liked the stuff before, but now it sent down a flood of warmth into him.

      ‘Gee, that’s good cocoa, Li Han,’ he said, ‘you are a swell guy.’

      ‘Is approximately one-half rum,’ replied Li Han, refilling the mug for Olaf. ‘Other half mostly Yellow Sea.’

      ‘That’s a good sea-cook,’ said Olaf, thoughtfully, after Li Han had gone. ‘Although he’s only a poor heathen.’

      ‘What’s happened?’ asked Derrick, suddenly aware of a change in the ship’s motion.

      ‘The Old Man put her about at dawn. We’re riding it out now.’

      Derrick hurried on deck. ‘You take care,’ shouted Olaf after him, ‘this ain’t no day for a swim.’

      He saw at once that the worst was over. There was still a huge sea running, and the wind was a full gale, but it was nothing to what it had been, and the Wanderer was riding it out with a high and buoyant ease.

      But the deck was a dismal sight. The ordinarily trim expanse of holy-stoned wood was a tangle of ropes and cordage, broken spars and storm-wrack: a gaping hole showed where the davits had torn out, and the deck-house was gone entirely.

      His uncle was at the wheel now, and Derrick shouted in his ear, ‘It was a proper typhoon, wasn’t it?’

      ‘No, only a little one,’ said Sullivan.

      ‘But we passed through the storm-centre, didn’t we?’ asked Derrick, in a disappointed bellow.

      ‘No. Nothing like it. We skirted the edge after all. Now if you’ve done with admiring the view, go for’ard and bear a hand.’

      Derrick hurried along the deck as fast as his aches and bruises would let him. To a landman’s eye the ship looked derelict, but in fact everything was well in hand. The Malays were at the pumps, and Ross was reeving new halliards: already the essential had been done, but it needed a more experienced eye than Derrick’s to know it.

      ‘Good morning, lad,’ said Ross, as Derrick came up. ‘Are you fit for a spell of hard labour now?’

      ‘Well, sir, I think I could manage a little gentle exercise,’ said Derrick, grinning.

      ‘Very good. Then just take a wee look at the shrouds and ratlines yonder, where the spar tore through them. See if you can set that to rights.’

      ‘But –’ gasped Derrick, with his smile fading as he gazed up into the endless tangle.

      ‘Och, lad, I can see you need a few years of schooling. A sailor would have set about that in no time. Ah weel, I’d best do it myself.’

      ‘No, no. I just meant I was wondering where to begin.’

      ‘Humph. The best plan is to begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end.’

      Derrick swung himself up and started at the nearest dead-eye. ‘I’ll show him,’ he muttered, jabbing away with a marlin-spike. It was a difficult, tedious job, and Ross knew it well: he was testing the boy. Piece by piece Derrick unravelled the tangle, and presently the ratlines began to assume a reasonable shape. The wind was blowing itself out, and by noon it was easier to work. They ate, enormously, at mid-day, and after the meal Derrick came on deck again, surveyed his work with satisfaction, and was just beginning to start on the frapping when there was the cry of a sail on the port bow.

      ‘She looks to me like the remains of a junk,’ said Ross, focusing his glasses.

      The Wanderer came about on the other tack, and soon they were within hail of the junk. No answer came from her as she wallowed in the dying swell: her decks were awash, and she had been battered almost out of recognition. The high poop had been completely torn away, and only a gaping hole showed where the main-mast had been wrenched bodily out of her.

      ‘There’s no one alive on board,’ said Sullivan, scanning her ravaged decks. ‘She’ll not last the day.’

      The derelict rose and fell: each time she vanished into the trough of a wave it seemed impossible that she should reappear, but she did, time and time again.

      ‘There’s something moving in her bows,’ cried Derrick, from the rigging. ‘I saw it twice.’

      Lowering the only boat that had survived was a tricky job, but there was no broken water, and they managed it. Ross and the old Malay stayed in the boat while Derrick stepped aboard the junk: she was so low in the water that he did not have to climb.

      ‘Look lively, boy,’ cried Ross. ‘She’ll be going any minute now.’

      In the bows Derrick found a drowned Chinese sailor and a living dog. It was very weak; it could only just move, but it growled and snapped as Derrick shifted the broken planks to reach it. It was a large dog, rather of the build of a mastiff, but with longer legs and a shaggy yellow coat: a thick leather thong held it to the deck. As Derrick tried to cut it free, the dog turned and sunk its teeth into his hand.

      ‘Oh, you –,’ cried Derrick, remembering some of Olaf’s choicer words. He clouted it and cut through the leather. The dog made as if to stand, but it could not. Derrick grabbed it by the scruff, dragged it to the broken gunwale and dropped it into the boat, where it lay snarling.

      ‘That’s all it was that was moving, sir,’ he said to Ross. ‘I’m afraid the man was dead.’

      ‘Humph,’ said Ross, eyeing the dog.

      ‘Well, that’s a fine bit of salvage,’ said Sullivan, when Derrick hauled it aboard the schooner. ‘A measly pie-dog. And a yellow one with the mange at that.’

      Li Han came up from the galley and looked at the dripping beast. ‘Animal of small value,’ he said, having considered it from all angles. ‘Of no value at present, but might furnish succulent stew if fattened.’

      ‘That ain’t no dog,’ said Olaf. ‘That’s an infant dromedary, that is.’

      ‘You’d better disinfect your hand, Derrick, and sling the pie-dog overboard. СКАЧАТЬ