Tag Archives: Jack Aubrey

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Jack had always liked the young, and in any case he felt that a guest was entitled to consideration at his table, so having invited Ellis to drink a glass of wine with him, he smiled affably and said, ‘You people were reciting some verses in the foretop this morning. Very capital verses, I dare say — Mr Mowett’s verses? Mr Mowett turns a pretty line.’ So he did. His piece on the bending of the new mainsail was admired throughout the sloop: but most unhappily he had also been inspired to write, as part of a general description:

White as the clouds beneath the blaze of noon
Her bottom through translucent waters shone.

For the time being this couplet had quite destroyed his authority with the youngsters; and it was this couplet they had been reciting in the foretop, hoping thereby to provoke him still further.

‘Pray, will you not recite them to us? I am sure the Doctor would like to hear.’

‘Oh, yes, pray do,’ said Stephen.

The unhappy boy thrust a great lump of mutton into his cheek, turned a nasty yellow and gathered to his heart all the fortitude he could call upon. He said, ‘Yes, sir,’ fixed his eyes upon the stern-window and began,

‘White as the clouds beneath the blaze of noon Oh God don’t let me die

‘White as the clouds beneath the blaze of noon
Her b — ‘ His voice quavered, died, revived as a thin desperate ghost and squeaked out ‘Her bottom‘; but could do no more.

‘A damned fine verse,’ cried Jack, after a very slight pause. ‘Edifying too.’

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

Today’s Book: H.M.S. Surprise

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‘Dinner?’ cried Stephen, as though the meal had just been invented. ‘Dinner? Oh, yes: charmed — delighted,’

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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Minutes passed. The male shifted his hold a little. The female moved her triangular head, pivoting it slightly from left to right. Through his glass Stephen could see her sideways jaws open and close; then there was a blur of movements so rapid that for all his care and extreme attention he could not follow them, and the male’s head was off, clamped there, a detached lemon, under the crook of her green praying arms. She bit into it, the eye’s glow went out; on her back the headless male continued to copulate rather more strongly than before, all his inhibitions having been removed. ‘Ah,’ said Stephen with intense satisfaction, and noted down the time again.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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The Spanish bowman was about to hook on when Stephen, speaking a Scandinavian but instantly comprehensible Spanish, called out, ‘Have you a surgeon that understands the plague aboard your ship?’

The bowman lowered his hook. The officer said, ‘Why?’

‘Some of our men were taken poorly at Algiers, and we are afraid. We cannot tell what it is.’

‘Back water,’ said the Spanish officer to his men. ‘Where did you say you had touched?’

‘Algiers, Alger, Argel: it was there the men went ashore. Pray what is the plague like? Swellings? Buboes? Will you come and look at them? Pray, sir, take this rope.’

‘Back water,’ said the officer again. ‘And they went ashore at Algiers?’

‘Yes. Will you send your surgeon?’

‘No. Poor people, God and His Mother preserve you.’

‘May we come for medicines? Pray let me come into your boat.’

‘No,’ said the officer, crossing himself. ‘No, no. Keep off, or we shall fire into you. Keep out to sea — the sea will cure them. God be with you, poor people. And a happy voyage to you.’ He could be seen ordering the bowman to throw the boathook into the sea, and the launch pulled back fast to the bright-red xebec.

They were within very easy hailing distance now, and a voice from the frigate called out some words in Danish; Pram replied; and then a tall thin figure on the quarter-deck, obviously the captain, asked, had they seen an English sloop-of-war, a brig?

‘No,’ they said; and as the vessels began to draw away from one another Jack whispered, ‘Ask her name.’

‘Cacafuego,’ came the answer over the widening lane of sea. ‘A happy voyage.’

‘A happy voyage to you.’

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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‘Back the foretopsail slowly, Mr Marshall,’ murmured Jack, ‘and keep the hands to the braces.’ He murmured, for he knew very well that the frigate’s officers had their glasses trained on the quarter-deck, and a persuasive fallacy assured him that the glasses would magnify his voice as well.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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‘Take great care of the paint, now.’

At this point Stephen fell straight into the sea — into the hollow of the sea between the boat and the side of the sloop as they drew away from one another. He sank at once, rose just as they came together, struck his head between the two and sank again, bubbling. Most of the Sophie‘s people who swim leapt into the water, Jack among them; and others ran with boat-hooks, a dolphin-striker, two small grapnels, an ugly barbed hook on a chain; but it was the brothers Sponge that found him, five fathoms down (heavy bones for his size, no fat, lead-soled half-boots) and brought him up, his clothes blacker than usual, his face more white, and he streaming with water, furiously indignant.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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‘This I had from Mateu’s own cousin as we danced — ‘

‘You danced?’ cried Jack, far more astonished than if Stephen had said ‘as we ate our cold roast baby’.

‘Certainly I danced. Why would I not dance, pray?’

‘Certainly you are to dance — most uncommon graceful, I am sure. I only wondered . . . but did you really go about dancing?’

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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Barret Bonden, coxswain and captain of the maintop, was unusually young for his post; a fine open-looking creature, tough without brutality, cheerful, perfectly in his place and, of course, a prime seaman — bred to the sea from childhood. ‘Sit down, Bonden,’ said Jack, a little consciously, for what he was about to offer was the quarter-deck, no less, and the possibility of advancement to the very pinnacle o the sailor’s heirarchy. ‘I have been thinking . . . should you like to be rated midshipman?’

‘Why, no sir, not at all,’ answered Bonden at once, his teeth flashing in the gloom. ‘But I think you very kindly for your good opinion, sir.’

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian

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In times of stress Jack Aubrey had two main reactions: he either became aggressive or he became amorous; he longed either for the violent catharsis of action or for that of making love. He loved a battle: he loved a wench.

Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian