Alec announced the exhibition of boxing skill. A lot of people gathered on deck to watch the match.
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1310.
In 1943 Lieutenant Alexander Barr was ordered into the Armed Guard aboard the merchant ship, like many other civillian officers with no real mechanical skills— teachers, writers, lawyers.
R. Ruark
His men were the rag-tag2 of merchant service and knew very little of it Lieutenant Alec Barr had his crew well in hand except one particularly unpleasant character, a youngster called Zabinski. Ekrery ship has its problem child, and Zabinski was Alec's cross. If anybody was drunk and in trouble ashore3, it was Zabinski. If anybody was smoking on watch, or asleep on watch4, it always was Zabinski. Discipline on board was hard to keep and Zabinski made it worse.
Alec called the boy to his cabin. "I Ve tried to reason with you5," he said. "I've punished you with everything from confinement to ship6 to extra duty. I've come to the conclusion that the only thing you may understand is force. I've got some boxing gloves. Navy Regulations say they should be used for recreation. We are going to have some."
"That's all right", Zabinski said smiling.
It didn't take Lieutenant Barr long to discover that he was in the ring with a semiprof essional. They were fighting two-minute rounds. But from the firat five seconds of the first round Alec knew that Zabinski could knock him out with a single punch7 if he wanted to. But Zabinski didn't want to, he was toying with his commander, and the snickers8 grew into laughter.
In the third round Alec held up a glove. "Time out!", he said. "I'm going to my cabin, I'll soon be back"- He turned and ran up to his cabin. In the cabin there was a safe. Alec's duty was to pay wages to his personnel. Alec Barr opened the safe and took out a paper-wrapped roll of ten-cent coins. He put this roll of silver coins into his glove and returned on deck.
"Let's go!" he said and touched gloves with Zabinski. It had pleased Zabinski before to allow the officer to knock him from time to time because it gave him a chance for a short and painful punch. But now the silver-weighted glove crashed into the boy's chin and Zabinski was out He was lying on the floor motionless. Alec Barr looked briefly at the boy. "Somebody throw some water on him," he said coldly to the seamen. And he went up to his room to clean his cuts9 and put the roll of coins back to the safe. After that Lieutenant Alexander Barr had no more personnel trouble aboard ship.
NOTES:
1 foul play — нечестная игра
2 rag-tag — случайные люди
3 ashore — на берегу
4 on watch — на вахте
5 to reason with smb. — убедить кого-то
6 confine to ship — оставлять без увольнения
7 punch — удар кулаком
8 snickers — смешки
9cuts — раны
I
Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and expressions:
был назначен, на борту торгового корабля, держал команду корабля в подчинении, "трудный" ребенок, спать на вахте, поддерживать дисциплину, наряд вне
очереди, демонстрация боксерских умений, на ринге, отправить в нокаут одним ударом, выплачивать зарплату, завернутый в бумагу, лежать без движений.
II
Give Russian equivalents for thefollowing words and expressions from the text era/ use them in the sentences of your own:
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