"Conrad, Josph - Youth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

for so much as ten seconds. There was for us no sky,
there were for us no stars, no sun, no universe--nothing
but angry clouds and an infuriated sea. We pumped
watch and watch, for dear life; and it seemed to last for
months, for years, for all eternity, as though we had been
dead and gone to a hell for sailors. We forgot the day
of the week, the name of the month, what year it was,
and whether we had ever been ashore. The sails blew
away, she lay broadside on under a weather-cloth, the
ocean poured over her, and we did not care. We turned
those handles, and had the eyes of idiots. As soon as we
had crawled on deck I used to take a round turn with a
rope about the men, the pumps, and the mainmast, and
we turned, we turned incessantly, with the water to our
waists, to our necks, over our heads. It was all one.
We had forgotten how it felt to be dry.

"And there was somewhere in me the thought: By
Jove! this is the deuce of an adventure--something you
read about; and it is my first voyage as second mate--
and I am only twenty--and here I am lasting it out as
well as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to
the mark. I was pleased. I would not have given up
the experience for worlds. I had moments of exultation.
Whenever the old dismantled craft pitched heavily with
her counter high in the air, she seemed to me to throw
up, like an appeal, like a defiance, like a cry to the clouds
without mercy, the words written on her stern: 'Judea,
London. Do or Die.'

"O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the
imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap
carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight--to
me she was the endeavor, the test, the trial of life. I
think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret--
as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I
shall never forget her. . . . Pass the bottle.

"One night when tied to the mast, as I explained, we
were pumping on, deafened with the wind, and without
spirit enough in us to wish ourselves dead, a heavy sea
crashed aboard and swept clean over us. As soon as I
got my breath I shouted, as in duty bound, 'Keep on,
boys!' when suddenly I felt something hard floating on
deck strike the calf of my leg. I made a grab at it and
missed. It was so dark we could not see each other's
faces within a foot--you understand.

"After that thump the ship kept quiet for a while,
and the thing, whatever it was, struck my leg again.