"Mowat, Farley - A Whale For The Killing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mowat Farley)

Ro. We met him first in the gloomy fiords of Bay Despair
in 1961 on a day when I brought my own leaky little
schooner alongside the Burgeo looking for help in repairing
my ancient engine. Not only did I get the assistance of the
Chief Engineer, Captain Ro himself came aboard my little
vessel, having first asked formal permission to do so. He paid
me a high compliment by addressing me as "Skipper," and
he never failed to use the title whenever we met again.

I wish I could still do him equal honour for, like the
Burgeo, Captain Ro is also gone. During a heavy gale - it
was more nearly a hurricane - in Cabot Strait in the spring
of 1970, he took the 10,000-ton train ferry Patrick Morris
out of North Sydney in response to a distress call from a
herring seiner. The seiner foundered before the Morris
could reach her, and while Skipper Ro was trying to recover

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tlie body of one of the drowned fishermen, a forty-foot sea
stove in ilie ferry's stern loading door, swamped her, and
the big ship began to go down. Captain Ro ordered the
crew to the boats but three of the engine room crowd could
not be found, and Ro Penney refused to leave without them.
He was a quiet man, and steadfast to the end.

Skipper Ro tugged at the whistle lanyard and the Burgoo's
throaty voice rang deep and melancholy over the spume
whipped harbour. The lines came in and we backed out
into the stream. Once clear of the fairway buoy, the little
ship bent to the gale and headed east, holding close in
against the looming, snow-hazed land to find what lee there
was.

I went below to the old-fashioned dining saloon with its
Victorian, leaded glass windows, worn linen tablecloths, and
battered but gleaming silverware. Most of the passengers
were gathered there, having a mug-up of tea and bread and
butter, and yarning companionably, for on the Sou'west
Coast everyone knows everyone else, or is at least known to
everyone else. Claire was sitting between the owner of a
small dragger and his dumpy, jovial wife. I joined them,
The nor'easter screamed in the top-hamper and the old
reciprocating steam engine thumped its steady, heavy heart-
beat underfoot as we listened to the gossip of the coast.

Had we heard that the government was going to close out
the settlement of Grey River? The dragger owner snorted
into his cup of tea. "Hah! By the Lard Jasus, they fellers in
St. John's is goin' to find they needs a full cargo o' dynamite