"David Weber - The Excalibur Alternative" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

had forced itself into his nostrils and eyes.

The cog fought her way once more up out of the abyss, wallowing as the water cascaded off
her deck through buckled rails. Broken cordage blew out, bar-straight and deadly as flails on
the howling torrent of wind, and he heard the hull crying out in torment. Sir George was a
landsman, yet even he felt the shipтАЩs heavier motion, knew the menтАФand womenтАФlaboring
frantically at the pumps and bailing with buckets, bowls, even bare hands, were losing ground
steadily.

The vessel was doomed. All the ships of his expedition were doomed тАж and there was
nothing he could do about it. The unexpected summer gale had caught them at the worst
possible moment, just as they were rounding the Scilly Isles on their way from Lancaster to
Normandy. There had been no warning, no time to seek shelter, only the desperate hope that
they might somehow ride out the stormтАЩs violence on the open sea.

And that hope had failed.

Sir George had seen only one ship actually die. He was uncertain which, but he thought it
had been Earl CathwallтАЩs flagship. He hoped he was wrong. It was unlikely any of them would
survive, but Lord Cathwall was more than the commander of the expedition. He was also Sir
GeorgeтАЩs father-in-law, and they held one another in deep and affectionate respect. And
perhaps Sir George was wrong. The dying ship had been almost close enough to hear the
shrieks of its doomed company even through the stormтАЩs demented howl as it was pounded
into the depths, but the darkness and storm fury, broken only by the glare of forked lighting,
had made exact identification impossible.

Yet even though it was the only ship he had seen destroyed, he was grimly certain there
had been others. Indeed, he could see only one other vessel still fighting its hopeless battle, and
he ground his teeth as yet another heavy sea crashed over his own cog. The impact staggered
the ship, and a fresh chorus of screams and prayers came faintly from the men and women
and children packed below its streaming deck. His wife Matilda and their son Edward were in
that dark, noisome hellhole of crowded terror and vomit, of gear come adrift and washing
seawater, and terror choked him as he thought of them once again. He tried to find the words
of prayer, the way to plead with God to save his wife and his son. He did not beg for himself. It
wasnтАЩt his way, and his was the responsibility for bringing them to this in the first place. If God
wanted his life in exchange for those so much dearer to him, it was a price he would pay
without a whimper.

Yet he knew it was a bargain he would not be permitted. He and Matilda and Edward
would meet their ends together, crushed by the soulless malice and uncaring brutality of sea
and wind, and deep within him bitter protest reproached the God who had decreed that they
should.

The cog shuddered and twitched, heaving in the torment of over-strained timbers and
rigging, and Sir George looked up as the shipтАЩs mate shouted something. He couldnтАЩt make out
the words, but he knew it was a question, and he shook himself like a sodden dog, struggling
to make his mind function. For all his ignorance of the sea, he had found himself doomed to
command of the ship when a falling spar killed the captain. In fact, heтАЩd done little more than
agree with the mateтАЩs suggestions, lending his authority to the support of a man who mightтАФ
might!тАФknow enough to keep them alive a few hours more. But the mate had needed that