Blangr: переводы

→The captain of Le Téméraire stepped forward and doffed his elaborate broad-brimmed hat in salute. 'Well, Captain Quinton,' he said, 'we meet again.'

→Feared for it in that brief moment before the entire ship's company of Le Téméraire burst into song. 'Te deum laudamus! they sang. ' Te dominum confitemur!'

→Up a ladder, onto the main deck, every step taking me closer to my fate, back into the sunlight—where I was greeted at once by one of the most almighty cacophonies I have ever heard. The ship's trumpeters—seemingly a dozen of them, as against Seraph's two—blared out a tune that seemed to provide the treble line to the bass of the ship's batteries on both sides as they began a terrible simultaneous double broadside. I feared for my ship .

→We came alongside the mighty French ship. She had a proper entrance port, elaborately gilded all around, and I was greeted at this by a junior officer who bowed stiffly in salute. He led me through the main deck, past ranks of gun crews at their weapons, all gazing blankly at this English officer as if I was the Man in the Moon. I was surprised by the lack of stench; the French sailor was notorious for his habit of relieving himself between decks. The captain of Le Téméraire evidently enforced a higher standard, but then, I should have expected that from the fastidious Seigneur de Montnoir.

→A few minutes later, I said my farewells to my officers. These were brief, but a shake of the hand, for I had no inclination for tears, to which we English are ever too inclined. I made light of it all, saying that I would merely sample My Lord Montnoir's wine and return before the change of the watch. But when I looked into the eyes of each man of them, I knew I beheld the stares of men who are looking upon a dying friend for the last time. Kit gripped my hand tightly and promised we should meet again. Negus nodded grimly, for he, of all of them, was the most convinced that I was doing the right thing. Francis Gale said a quiet prayer over me. Musk simply said, 'And just what the hell do I tell your wife?'

→Francis concluded the psalm: 'The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in; from this time forth, for evermore.' He began the private prayers, and O'Dwyer finally stopped his struggling. Then he did the strangest thing. This renegade, this faithless turncoat, began praying audibly in the Latin of his first faith, the faith of his Irish childhood. 'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum. Domine Jesu Christe, accipe spiritum meum. Sancta Maria, ora pro me...' Despite myself, I began mouthing with him the words that my Catholic grandmother had taught me: 'Sancta Maria, Mater gratiae, Mater misericordiae, tu me defendas ab hoste— ' Too late, I saw Montnoir's gaze upon me, and the curious expression in his eyes.

→Thus I stood my watch, musket in hand, upon that desolate plain, listening to the myriad sounds of the night from the clicking of insects to the distant roar of lions. It was a bright night, and I tried to identify stars that Kit had once taught me. Was that Aldebaran or Os Baleni? And that—the Horn of Aries, surely? But looking too long into the night sky brought on an overwhelming urge to sleep, and I turned my thoughts elsewhere; I had already fallen foul of enough of the Articles of War without adding a breach of the twenty-seventh by sleeping on watch. But when it came to my turn to sleep, just before dawn and after a few hours of night marching, I never knew a more comfortable pillow than the earth of Africa, nor experienced a deeper slumber than during those two blessed hours when I slept beneath the stars.

→By taking another two hours' sleep in the middle of the next day, and then repeating the process anew, we could both march for eighteen hours in every twenty-four, a rate that I doubted O'Dwyer alone could sustain, and also distribute the watch-keeping duties fairly among all. And I truly meant 'all'; this was no time for officers to stand upon the privilege of their rank. As a signal of my intent, I moved that Francis, Kit and I should have the first watch. This caused some astonishment and protest among the men, who held that it was not right for the captain or a Reverend to do such menial work, and stand guard over rough tarpaulins such as themselves. But I held my ground, although in truth I was tired enough after the previous night's exertions.

→At dusk, we lit a fire, cooked and devoured some guinea-fowls that Mamadou had downed, and made our arrangements for the night. O'Dwyer would probably not press on through the darkness on his own; that, at least, gave us an advantage. We would take two hours sleep, with three men standing guard, then press on a few hours more before sleeping another two hours just before dawn, when the guards from the first shift could have their slumber.

→Ah, honour,' said Musk wearily. '"What is honour? A word. What is that word, honour? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He who died o' Wednesday." The First Part of King Henry the Fourth, as I recall, not that I can abide that over-rated scribbler from Stratford. 'And what's today? Wednesday. Methinks yonder lion has a Musk-eating look about him.'

→'The latter, in his dealings with me,' said the King. 'He came to my court this afternoon, dressed in the Arab fashion.' I nodded; so that was why O'Dwyer had disappeared for some hours. 'He knew of my war with the King of Niani, beyond the ridge, and swore that he could provide me with the weapons to win that war. The weapons aboard this ship, which serves the enemy of my mother's country.'

→I sat the King of Kasang down in my half-cabin and offered him some wine, which he drank lustily. He did not seem bitter and vengeful at the deaths of so many of his men; evidently his culture valued the warrior, and respected a victorious enemy. His surviving tribesmen had retired to their canoes, but we could hear the swish of paddles as these circled the ship, waiting for some sign as to the fate of their chief. I had no doubt that this was no victory, but a mere truce, and all depended on the discourse between the King and I in the next few minutes. I sent for Belem to translate, but it was swiftly clear that he was not needed; the King spoke almost flawless Dutch.

→' Overgave, uwe majesteit!' I cried in Dutch—surrender, your majesty.

→It was discipline and modern weapons against sheer weight of numbers now, and the issue was still in the balance. Then I saw that one of the natives was dressed differently to the others. His arms were decorated in the gris-gris that had adorned the King of Kombo, and he wore a similar mitre-like headpiece. He was a tall, striking figure, whose skin seemed lighter than that of the warriors alongside him. As he fought, he uttered a word that I recognised all too well: 'Stront!'. It frequently escaped the lips of my wife, the Dutch being more delicate in my mother's hearing than the English equivalent or even its French alternative, merde. I gestured to Musk and Gale, and we began to cut our way towards the richly clad man. The natives around him fought even more ferociously than those we had battled through already, but at last I had what I sought—a space, a few precious feet of open space—I reached to my belt with my free hand and lifted the flintlock pistol.

→The moonlight glinted on a spear-point, coming at me from the right—I swung my sword up, deflected the thrust and at once swept my blade into the side of my assailant's head, opening his skull and spilling his brains. We were almost meeting Facey's men now, the soldiers advancing grimly in two ranks as though they were upon the practice ground. As I watched, one of the redcoats reacted too slowly to a spear thrust which struck hard into his groin. The soldier fell to his knees, cupping his manhood in his hands so it would not spill onto the deck, before falling forward and going to his God.

→I looked about me and saw my lieutenant. The sight was very brief: he levelled two pistols at tribesmen clambering over the starboard rail and fired, clouding both of us momentarily in smoke. When it cleared, the men on the rail were gone and Negus was already reloading. 'Any of our men in the waist, Mister Negus?' I cried.

→I saw Francis Gale drive his blade straight through the ribs of a man who was attempting to clamber onto the poop rail. The bloodied iron protruded like a skewer from the dying man's back before Francis pulled his sword free and turned in search of his next opponent.

→I fought my way to the quarterdeck rail, where Kit Farrell was wielding two cutlasses to deadly effect. As he swung with the right, cleaving a native at the shoulder, he lunged with his left, impaling another on the blade.

→The upper deck of the Seraph was a battlefield. A small band of my men held the quarterdeck and the forecastle, but the waist was filled with shrieking natives armed with the short spears, knives and decorated shields that we had seen on sale in the streets of Kasang that same morning. More and more of them streamed over the ship's rails on both sides.

→With the sun approaching its zenith, we sought a place that could provide us with two or three hours' of shelter. Belem led us to the hut of a half-breed of his acquaintance, a river trader named Moreno, and there we partook of palm wine and a little rice. That consumed, we settled ourselves upon the mats and let the heat and the wine take their course. A persistent fly annoyed me, but seemed of no concern to Belem or Moreno, who were already asleep. The hubbub of the town beyond the hut gradually subsided as its inhabitants sought their own shelter. I slipped into that curious place where one is half asleep, and aware of it, and half awake, and aware of it...