"S. M. Stirling - Sea of Time 01 - Island in the Sea of Time 484" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

"The wind's southing, ma'am," Thomas Hiller, the sailing
master, hinted.

"Brace them sharp, then."

The centuries-old litany of repeated orders echoed across the
deck; Eagle had been built to operate the old-fashioned way, no
high-geared winches or powered haulage. It ended with a
boatswain's mate bellowing: "Ease starboard, haul port, lively
port!"

"Heave!" shouted the line leader in a trained scream that cut
through the moan of the wind.

"Ho!" chorused the twenty young men and women on the line,
surging back in unison.

"Heave!"

"Ho!"

"Ma'am." Alston looked up. Hiller looked a little lost, which
was a first. He'd been on the Eagle for eight years. "Ma'amтАж
there's something odd about the compass reading."

An old-fashioned magnetic card compass binnacle stood
before the wheels. She took a step and looked down into it; the
card was whirling, spinning in complete circles. Captain Alston
blinked in surprise. What on earth could cause that? The sky was
clear to the horizon, only a little high cloud boiling in on the
windтАФunusually good weather for this time of year and these
latitudes, although there might be a storm riding in on the
nor'easter. No lightning, certainly. Then she noticed that the
gyro repeater compass was quivering too.

Marian Alston had been in the Coast Guard much of her
thirty-eight years, commanded the Eagle for four, and served on
search-and-rescue craft and armed cutters before that; she'd
joined up the year sea duty was opened to women. You learned
to trust your gut. And never, never to trust the sea.

"Finish up and get them down," she said.

Cadets and crew poured down the ratlines, the latter
sometimes helping the former along; for the first few weeks out,
there would always be the odd officer cadet who froze a hundred
and fifty feet up on a swaying rope.

A fat blue spark jumped from her hand to the metal housing