"Smith, Wilber - Hungry as the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

which was a measure of his despondency.

But when he shaved, the mirrored face was that of a stranger still, too
pale and punt and set. The lines that framed his mouth were too deeply
chiselled, and the early sunlight through the port caught the dark hair
at his temple and he saw the frosty glitter there and leaned closer to
the mirror. It was the first time he had noticed the flash of silver
hair - perhaps he had never looked hard enough, or perhaps it was
something new.

Forty he thought. I'll be forty years old next June. He had always
believed that if a man never caught the big one before he was forty, he
was doomed never to do so.

So what were the rules for the man who caught the big wave before he was
thirty, and rode it fast and hard and high, then lost it again before he
was forty and was washed out into the trough of boiling white water. Was
he doomed also?

Nick stared at himself in the mirror and felt the anger in him change
its form, becoming directed and functional.

He stepped into the shower, and let the needles of hot water sting his
chest. Through the tiredness and disillusion, he was aware, for the
first time in weeks, of the underlying strength which he had begun to
doubt was still there. He felt it rising to the surface in him, and he
thought of what an extraordinary sea creature he was, how it needed only
a deck under him and the smell of the sea in his throat.

He stepped from the shower and dried quickly. This was the right place
to be now. This was the place to recuperate - and he realized that his
decision not to replace Mac with a hired skipper had been a gut
decision. He needed to be here himself.

Always he had known that if you wanted to ride the big wave, you must
first be at the place where it begins to peak. It's an instinctive
thing, a man just knows where that place is. Nick Berg knew deep in his
being that this was, the place now, and, with his rising strength, he
felt the old excitement, the old I'll show the bastards who is beaten,
excitement, and he dressed swiftly and went up the Master's private
companionway to the Upper deck.

immediately, the wind flew at him and flicked his dark wet hair into his
face. It was force five from the south-east, and it came boiling over
the great flat-topped mountain which crouched above the city and
harbour. Nick looked at it and saw the thick white cloud they called
the table cloth spilling off the heights, and swirling along the grey
rock cliffs.

The Cape of Storms/ he murmured. Even the water in the protected dock