The Bomb Vessel
“The westerly wind had thrown a lowering overcast across the sky and then whipped itself into a gale, driving rain squalls across the track of the squadron as it struggled out of the Thames Estuary into the North Sea.
Their visible horizon was circumscribed by one such squall which hissed across the wave-caps and made Virago lean further to leeward as she leapt forward under its impetus. A roil of water foamed along the lee scuppers, squirting inboard through the closed gunports and Drinkwater c...ould hear the grunts of the helmsmen as they leaned against the cant of the deck and the kicking resistance of the big tiller. A clicking of blocks told where the quartermaster took up the slack on the relieving tackles. Drinkwater shivered again, marvelling at the chill in his spine which was at odds with the burning of his head.
He knew it could be typhus, the ship-fever, brought aboard by the lousy draft of pressed men, but he was fastidious in the matter of bodily cleanliness and had not recently discovered lice or fleas upon his person.MoreLess
Their visible horizon was circumscribed by one such squall which hissed across the wave-caps and made Virago lean further to leeward as she leapt forward under its impetus. A roil of water foamed along the lee scuppers, squirting inboard through the closed gunports and Drinkwater c...ould hear the grunts of the helmsmen as they leaned against the cant of the deck and the kicking resistance of the big tiller. A clicking of blocks told where the quartermaster took up the slack on the relieving tackles. Drinkwater shivered again, marvelling at the chill in his spine which was at odds with the burning of his head.
He knew it could be typhus, the ship-fever, brought aboard by the lousy draft of pressed men, but he was fastidious in the matter of bodily cleanliness and had not recently discovered lice or fleas upon his person.MoreLess
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