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

This time I caught it--and it was a sauce-pan. At first,
being stupid with fatigue and thinking of nothing but
the pumps, I did not understand what I had in my hand.
Suddenly it dawned upon me, and I shouted, 'Boys, the
house on deck is gone. Leave this, and let's look for the
cook.'

"There was a deck-house forward, which contained
the galley, the cook's berth, and the quarters of the
crew. As we had expected for days to see it swept away,
the hands had been ordered to sleep in the cabin--the
only safe place in the ship. The steward, Abraham,
however, persisted in clinging to his berth, stupidly, like
a mule--from sheer fright I believe, like an animal that
on't leave a stable falling in an earthquake. So we
went to look for him. It was chancing death, since once
out of our lashings we were as exposed as if on a raft.
But we went. The house was shattered as if a shell had
exploded inside. Most of it had gone overboard--stove,
men's quarters, and their property, all was gone; but
two posts, holding a portion of the bulkhead to which
Abraham's bunk was attached, remained as if by a mir-
acle. We groped in the ruins and came upon this, and
there he was, sitting in his bunk, surrounded by foam and
wreckage, jabbering cheerfully to himself. He was out
of his mind; completely and for ever mad, with this
sudden shock coming upon the fag-end of his endurance.
We snatched him up, lugged him aft, and pitched him
head-first down the cabin companion. You understand
there was no time to carry him down with infinite pre-
cautions and wait to see how he got on. Those below
would pick him up at the bottom of the stairs all right.
We were in a hurry to go back to the pumps. That busi-
ness could not wait. A bad leak is an inhuman thing.

"One would think that the sole purpose of that fiend-
ish gale had been to make a lunatic of that poor devil of
a mulatto. It eased before morning, and next day the
sky cleared, and as the sea went down the leak took up.
When it came to bending a fresh set of sails the crew
demanded to put back--and really there was nothing else
to do. Boats gone, decks swept clean, cabin gutted, men
without a stitch but what they stood in, stores spoiled,
ship strained. We put her head for home, and--would
you believe it? The wind came east right in our teeth.
It blew fresh, it blew continuously. We had to beat up
every inch of the way, but she did not leak so badly,
the water keeping comparatively smooth. Two hours'
pumping in every four is no joke--but it kept her afloat
as far as Falmouth.