"John Kessel - Another Orphan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

Fallon had the headache that was the residue of the wine; he could still
smell Carol. He was very hungry and dazed as he stumbled into the bright
sunlight on the deck of the ship. It was there. It was real. He was awake.
The ocean stretched flat and empty in all directions. The ship rolled
slightly as it made way with the help of a light wind, and despite the early
morning it was already hot. He did not hear the sound or feel the vibration
of an engine. Fallon stared, unable to collect the scattered impressions
into coherence; they were all consistent with the picture of an antiquated
sailing ship on a very real ocean, all insane when compared with where his
mind told him he ought to be.

The men had gone to their work as soon as they'd stretched into the
morning light. They wore drab shirts and canvas trousers; most were
barefoot. Fallon walked unsteadily along the deck, trying to keep out of
their way as they set to scrubbing the deck. The ship was unlike anything
he had ever seen on Lake Michigan; he tried to ignore the salt smell that
threatened to make it impossible for him to convince himself this was
Lake Michigan. Yet it seemed absurd for such a small vessel to be in the
middle of an ocean. He knew that the Coast Guard kept sailing ships for
training its cadets, but these were no cadets.

The deck was worn, scarred, and greasy with a kind of oily, clear
lardlike grease. The rail around the deck was varnished black and
weather-beaten, but the pins set through it to which the rigging was
secured were ivory. Fallen touched one—it was some kind of tooth. More
ivory was used for rigging-blocks and on the capstan around which the
anchor chain was wound. The ship was a thing of black wood fading to
white under the assault of water and sun, and of white ivory corroding to
black under the effect of dirt and hard use. Three longboats, pointed at
both ends, hung from arms of wood and metal on the left—the port—side;
another such boat was slung at the rear of the deck on the starboard side,
and on the raised part of the deck behind the mainmast two other boats
were turned turtle and secured. Add to this the large hatch on the main
deck and a massive brick structure that looked like some old-fashioned
oven just behind the front mast, and there hardly seemed room for the
fifteen or twenty men on deck to go about their business. There was
certainly no place to hide.

"Fallen! Set your elbows to that deck, or I shall have to set your nose to
it!" A short sandy-haired man accosted him. Stocky and muscular, he was
some authority; there was insolence in his grin, and some seriousness. The
other men looked up.

Fallen got out of the man's way. He went over to one of the groups
washing down the deck with salt water, large scrub brushes, and what
looked like push brooms with leather flaps instead of bristles, like large
versions of the squeegees used to clean windows. The sandy-haired man
watched him as he got down on his hands and knees and grabbed one of
the brushes.