Run Afoul Read Online Free PDF

expedition only because Dr. Burroughs, a very rich man whose hobby was astronomy, had paid handsomely for the privilege. Originally, Captain Wilkes had been determined that no civilian surveyors should be shipped, having given himself the role of expedition astronomer, something for which he was well qualified, as everyone knew that he had learned triangulation methods of survey from Ferdinand Hassler, and geomagnetism from James Renwick, a professor at Columbia College. However, he had been persuaded to make an exception in Grimes’s case, as a favor to a friend.
    â€œSo why have you been shifted?”
    â€œTo carry out duties as Captain Wilkes’s instrumentmaker. We’ll be conducting a protracted series of pendulum experiments at Rio de Janeiro, which are part of a series intended to establish the precise force of gravity.”
    Wiki frowned, because this was the first he had heard that they were to stay at Rio for any length of time. Occasionally, though he greatly respected Captain Wilkes’s intelligence, he couldn’t help but wonder about his state of mind. While it was supposed to be a secret, every man in the whole fleet knew that they were supposed to mount a search for the continent of Antarctica before the southern summer ended in February—and it was now November, and time was running out fast. Was Captain Wilkes determined to arrive in Antarctic seas so late in the season he would endanger the lives of all?
    Grimes interrupted his thoughts by saying crossly, “So why are you sharing this cabin with me? I had my own room on the Porpoise, and I don’t wish to live with anyone here, particularly not with a Kanaka. ”
    â€œIt’s on Captain Wilkes’s orders,” Wiki said stiffly. “If you have any complaints, then he’s the man you should tackle. In fact, I wish you would.”
    â€œI certainly will,” Grimes flashed right back—and at that unfortunate moment Festin appeared in the doorway, apparently having tracked down Wiki by the sound of his voice.
    In his mixture of dialect and the profane English he had learned from Forsythe, he said plaintively, “The officer gave orders for Tana and Sua to go back to the brig, and then that old bastard of a cook threw me out of my galley.”
    Oh God, thought Wiki, feeling completely at a loss. Then the Acadian complained, “No one has even told me where I will sleep. ”
    Wiki did not have a notion where the afterhouse cook slept. When he asked Jack Winter, the plump steward bridled, and snapped, “Not in my room, I assure you!”
    â€œ Your room?” It was the first Wiki had ever heard of a steward having a room of his own. On the brig Swallow, Stoker, the steward, bunked with the cook, the boatswain, and the sailmaker.
    â€œI took the liberty of slinging a hammock in the storeroom.”
    With the rats, meditated Wiki, remembering the fat vermin that had run out of the storeroom the night before. He grimaced. The rats were bad enough, but because of his childhood training, he knew without doubt that laying one’s head where food was stored was very wrong.
    He said, “Where the devil is Lieutenant Smith?”
    Jack Winter looked around, and shrugged. “The officers’ wardroom?”
    â€œAnd where, pray, is that?”
    â€œOn the gun deck, aft.”
    Gun deck. For a moment the word made no sense. Infuriatingly, Wiki was aware that Jack Winter, having the advantage of an extra five days on board the Vincennes, was gazing at him loftily, in a most superior fashion. Then he was saved by a memory of being escorted about the three levels of the flagship by the junior midshipmen of the Vincennes, several long weeks ago.
    The deck where the afterhouse stood, he recollected, was called “the spar deck.” Save for the afterhouse and various structures on the foredeck, it was open to the air. Next down came the gun deck, and below that was the berth deck,