"Cussler, Clive - NUMA Files 04 - White Death - with Paul Kemprecos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cussler Clive)

streamlined look that was ahead of its time, gracefully curving up at
the rear where the captain's house overhung the stern. The prow was
elongated, although it no longer functioned as a ram as in times past.
The bow had been transformed into an artillery platform.

A small three-sided lateen sail hung from a single mast near the

stern, but human muscle power gave the galley its speed and
maneuverability. The Spanish penal system provided a steady supply of
rowers condemned to die pulling the heavy thirty-foot oars. The
cor-sia, a narrow gangway that ran fore and aft, was the realm of hard
men who urged the rowers on with threats and whip-lashes.

Aguirrez knew that the firepower arrayed against his ship would be
formidable. The galleys were nearly twice the eighty-foot length of
his tubby caravel. The fighting galley routinely carried fifty of the
single-shot muzzle-loaded smoothbore arquebuses. The heaviest gun, a
cast-iron, high-angle mortar called a bombard, was mounted on the bow
artillery platform. Its position on the right-front side was a
holdover from the days when naval strategy centered on ramming the
enemy head-on.

While the galley was a throwback to the sturdy Greek craft that carried
Odysseus from Circe to Cyclops, the caravel was the wave of the future.
Fast and maneuverable for its day, the rugged ship could sail anywhere
on the watery surface of the earth. The caravel blended its southern
rigging with a tough northern hull of flush-built planking and a
hinged, axe led rudder. The easily rigged lateen sails, descended from
the Arabic dhow, made the ship far superior to any contemporary sailing
vessel when sailing close to the wind.

Unfortunately for Aguirrez, those sails, so miraculous in their simple
efficiency, now hung limply from the twin masts. With no breeze to
stir the canvas, the sails were useless sheets of fabric. The becalmed
caravel was glued to the surface of the sea like a ship in a bottle.

Aguirrez glanced at the lifeless canvas and cursed the elements
conspiring against him. He seethed at the short-sighted arrogance that
had led him to defy his instinct to stay far out to sea. With their
low freeboard, the galleys were not designed for open waters and would
have had difficulty following the caravel. But he had sailed close to
land because the route was more direct. With favorable

winds, his ship could outrun any vessel on the sea. He'd never
anticipated a dead calm. Nor had he expected the galleys to find him
so easily.

He brushed away his self-recriminations and suspicions. Time enough to
deal with questions later. Tossing his blanket aside as if it were a
matador's cape, he strode the length of the ship bellowing orders. The