"Naomi Novik - Temeraire 1 - His Majesty's Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Novik Naomi)

bow; he did not speak French himself, and a more formal exchange would have to wait for the presence
of his third lieutenant, that young man being presently engaged belowdecks in securing the French guns.
With the cessation of hostilities, the remaining Frenchmen were all virtually dropping where they stood;
Laurence noticed that there were fewer of them than he would have expected for a frigate of thirty-six
guns, and that they looked ill and hollow-cheeked.

Many of them lay dead or dying upon the deck; he shook his head at the waste and eyed the French
captain with disapproval: the man should never have offered battle. Aside from the plain fact that the
Reliant would have had the Amitié slightly outgunned and outmanned under the best of circumstances,
the crew had obviously been reduced by disease or hunger. To boot, the sails above them were in a sad
tangle, and that no result of the battle, but of the storm which had passed but this morning; they had
barely managed to bring off a single broadside before the Reliant had closed and boarded. The captain
was obviously deeply overset by the defeat, but he was not a young man to be carried away by his
spirits: he ought to have done better by his men than to bring them into so hopeless an action.

“Mr. Riley,” Laurence said, catching his second lieutenant’s attention, “have our men carry the wounded
below.” He hooked the captain’s sword on his belt; he did not think the man deserved the compliment of
having it returned to him, though ordinarily he would have done so. “And pass the word for Mr. Wells.”

“Very good, sir,” Riley said, turning to issue the necessary orders. Laurence stepped to the railing to
look down and see what damage the hull had taken. She looked reasonably intact, and he had ordered his
own men to avoid shots below the waterline; he thought with satisfaction that there would be no
difficulty in bringing her into port.

His hair had slipped out of his short queue, and now fell into his eyes as he looked over. He impatiently
pushed it out of the way as he turned back, leaving streaks of blood upon his forehead and the sun-
bleached hair; this, with his broad shoulders and his severe look, gave him an unconsciously savage
appearance as he surveyed his prize, very unlike his usual thoughtful expression.

Wells climbed up from below in response to the summons and came to his side. “Sir,” he said, without
waiting to be addressed, “begging your pardon, but Lieutenant Gibbs says there is something queer in
the hold.”

“Oh? I will go and look,” Laurence said. “Pray tell this gentleman,” he indicated the French captain,
“that he must give me his parole, for himself and his men, or they must be confined.”

The French captain did not immediately respond; he looked at his men with a miserable expression.
They would of course do much better if they could be kept spread out through the lower deck, and any
recapture was a practical impossibility under the circumstances; still he hesitated, drooped, and finally
husked, “Je me rends,” with a look still more wretched.

Laurence gave a short nod. “He may go to his cabin,” he told Wells, and turned to step down into the

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hold. “Tom, will you come along? Very good.”

He descended with Riley on his heels, and found his first lieutenant waiting for him. Gibbs’s round face
was still shining with sweat and emotion; he would be taking the prize into port, and as she was a