"Woods, Stuart - White Cargo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Woods Stuart)

"I'm happy to go all night, if that's all right with you."

"I don't believe in all-nighters," Cat said.

"No need to wear yourself out your first twenty-four hours at sea by
pulling two watches. Save your strength; you might need it later." He
slid behind the wheel and took it from the younger man.

"Besides, this is my favorite watch, midnight to four. I'm too stingy to
let you have it."

"Well, if you insist," Denny replied, rising reluctantly from the
helmsman's seat.

"I insist," Cat laughed.

Denny climbed onto the deck from the cockpit.

"I'll just have a look forward, make sure everything's shipshape."

"Good idea," Cat said, tossing him a safety harness from a cockpit
locker and retrieving one for himself.

"Ship's law is nobody goes on deck at night without a harness. I'd
prefer it if you wore one even at the helm. It's a nuisance to have to
come about and recover bodies from the sea."

Denny got into the harness, clipped onto a jackstay, and worked his way
forward. He spent a good ten minutes there, most of it behind the
headsail, where he couldn't be seen. Just enjoying the night. Cat
thought.

When Denny had gone below. Cat experienced a tiny moment of regret. It
seemed, with the warm Caribbean breeze blowing across his face, that he
had reached some sort of peak, that things couldn't get better than
this, so they would have to get worse. Then, he remembered that, after
the Panama Canal, the South Pacific lay before them, that there would be
many more nights as lovely, many more days of tropical sunshine with his
wife and daughter as crew and friends. He passed his watch in a haze of
bliss.

* At a quarter to four the galley light went on, and Cat knew that Katie
was awake and brewing her tea. But shortly before four, Denny appeared
in the companionway, holding a mug.

"I was awake," he said, "so I thought I'd let Mrs. Catledge sleep. I'd
like the watch, if that's okay."

Cat shrugged.