Слово "batten". Англо-русский словарь Мюллера

Once all the equipment was back onboard, he battened down the vinyl top and draped Mangor’s dead body across the top, tying her down.

Yes, Admiral, disease." He smiled into Starr's face, and there was no laughter in his smile. "Pack men together like herring in a barrel, deprive 'em of every last ounce of resistance, batten "em below decks for days at a time, and what do you get?

If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose with the ship. For some time she had been doing the worse thing possible for me—standing still. She headed nearly due south, yawing, of course, all the time. Each time she fell off, her sails partly filled, and these brought her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said this was the worst thing possible for me, for helpless as she looked in this situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon and the blocks trundling and banging on the deck, she still continued to run away from me, not only with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount of her leeway, which was naturally great. But now, at last, I had my chance.

"You'll perhaps batten down your hatches till you're spoke to, my friend," cried Silver truculently to this speaker. And then, in his first gracious tones, he replied to me,