Читать книгу Kensuke's Kingdom - Michael Morpurgo - Страница 21

had planned it, except that the training took a lot longer. We soon learned that handling a forty-two foot yacht was not just dinghy sailing in a bigger boat. We were tutored by a whiskered old mariner from the yacht club, Bill Parker (‘Barnacle Bill’ we called him, but not to his face, of course). He had been twice round Cape Horn and done two single-handed Atlantic crossings, and he’d been across the channel ‘more times than you’ve had hot dinners, my lad’.

To tell the truth, we none of us liked him much. He was a hard taskmaster. He treated me and Stella Artois with equal disdain. To him all animals and children were just a nuisance and, on board ship, nothing but a liability. So I kept out of his way as much as I could, and so did Stella Artois.

To be fair to him, Barnacle Bill did know his business. By the time he had finished with us, and my mother was given her certificate, we felt we could sail the Peggy Sue anywhere. He had inculcated in us a healthy respect for the sea but, at the same time, we were confident we could handle just about anything the sea could hurl at us.

Mind you, there were times I was scared rigid.