"MacDonnell, J E - 021 - The Coxswain" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonnell J E)

worried about navigation. The Passage was not wide, but with the
island on one edge and the visible reef on the other it presented in
this quiet sea no problem to a well found ship. Once she was
committed to a safe course through she had simply to hold that course.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 12 -



That was what was exercising his mind at the moment- the
committal of the ship to an un-deviating course, with disaster waiting
on either side if she swerved from it. That would be the time for a
waiting aircraft to drop upon her . . .
A clipped and competent voice came up the voice-pipe:
"Bridge? Cox'n on the wheel, sir."
"Very good."
Nice, Bentley thought briefly. No actual order had been passed
to Smales, but either he had been waiting for the light to come into
sight or else the bosun's mate had used his own initiative. The team
was working smoothly with him . . .
He turned to the radar-officer, and the order he gave was one
which could come only from him:
"Get the close-range weapons closed-up."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
That would give him the multiple pom-pom, the oerlikons and
the machine-guns ready for instant use. There was not sufficient
danger, nor indication of it, to warrant closing-up the big guns' crews.
"Five minutes to the turn, sir." the navigator reported quietly.
Bentley nodded. The radar-officer stepped from the grating and
the captain took his place, behind the binnacle and close to the open
mouth of the wheelhouse voice-pipe. By that simple gesture he had
tacitly taken control of the ship.
"Close-range weapons closed-up."
"Very good."
It was the deep voice of Bob Randall, the first-lieutenant, who
answered the report. He would have come to the bridge anyway with
the ship in confined waters, but he was the gunnery-officer as well,
and the call to the guns had ensured his presence on deck.
But Bentley was not concerned with the obvious movements of
his deputy. His eyes were on the light and the passage, and he kept
clear of the compass while Pilot took his bearings. Yet while the one
part of his brain was busy with seamanship requirements, another
was judging:
This is the time . . . we're too close to swing hard a starb'd or
port; either we go on through, or else we stop and back out into clear
water. From now on in we're sitting ducks.
- J.E. Macdonnell: The Coxswain Page 13 -



"On the bearing, sir," Pilot said. And: