Sequel to this post about my favorite moments from Treason's Harbour, with the rest to be found filed under "O'Brian":
THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD
19: Jack runs into old friend Captain Sutton who says Jack looks "most uncommon hipped...like a cat that has lost its kittens." Jack explains, "'I dare say I do. Surprise is ordered home, you know, to be laid up or broke.'"
37-8: Jack is asked to take Surprise after the Norfolk, with some concern that a man of his seniority would not accept such a command: "Jack mastered the delighted smile that did all it could to spread over his face, and bidding his heart beat quieter he said, 'Well, sir, as you know I was promised the Blackwater on the North American station; but rather than sit idle at home while their lordships find me an equivalent, I should be happy to protect our whalers.'"
48: Stephen is watching birds with Martin and has declined Jack's invitation to dine with the admiral. "'What a satisfaction,' said Martin, following the bird with his single, carefully shaded eye, and some minutes after it had vanished, 'There is an odd creature almost exactly over your ship.' Stephen fixed it with his pocket spyglass and said, 'I believe it must be a crane, a solitary crane. How curious.' He also fixed Jack Aubrey on the quarterdeck of the Surprise, stalking to and fro like Ajax and waving his arms about. 'Why, he looks as though he were in quite a passion,' he murmured indulgently: he was used to passion in the executive officers at these times of preparation for a voyage. But he was not used to quite this degree of passion. Captain Aubrey had just received the message, delivered by a frightened, breathless, purple-faced Calamy, that Dr Maturin sent his compliments, but 'did not choose to come'. 'Does not choose to come,' cried Captain Aubrey. 'Red Hell and bloody death.'" When Stephen appears, sullenly, Jack says, "Lead on, Macbeth", forgetting that he has a crewmember named Macbeth who instantly jumps forward, and announces that he should have said "Macduff" but he has a Macduff too. "Quite unmollifled by this, Stephen was handed muttering down into the boat after the midshipman, and Jack followed him to the howl of silver pipes."
68-9: "When Stephen came into Jack's cabin late that evening for their usual supper of toasted cheese and an hour or two of music -- they were both devoted though not very highly accomplished players, and indeed their friendship had begun at a concert in Minorca, during the last war -- " Jack tells Stephen that Tom Pullings will sail with them. "'You do not anticipate any inconvenience from there being two first lieutenants?' 'I should, in any other ship and with any other men; but Pullings and Mowett have sailed together since they were youngsters - they are very close friends. They arranged it between themselves.' 'I believe I have heard the first lieutenant spoken of as one who is wedded to his ship; so this will be an example of polyandry.' 'Anan, brother?' 'I mean a plurality of husbands. In Thibet, we read, one woman will marry several brothers; whereas in certain parts of India it is considered infamous if the husbands are related in any degree.' 'A precious rum go in either event,' said Jack, considering, 'and I don't know that I should much care for it myself.' As he tuned his fiddle a vision of Mrs Horner came before his mind's eye, and he added, 'I do most sincerely hope it will be the only case of polyandry we ever see in this commission.' 'I am no great advocate for it,' said Stephen, reaching for his 'cello. 'Nor even for a plurality of wives. Indeed, there are moments when I wonder whether any satisfactory relation is possible between men and...' He checked himself and...they dashed away into their often-played yet ever-fresh Corelli in C major."
140: "[Pullings] and Mowett had been brought up from boyhood in a service that did not encourage the questioning of orders, and their 'Yes, sir,' came with no more than a barely measurable hesitation. Dr Maturin had no such inhibitions. When he came into the cabin that evening he waited until Jack had finished a charming little rondo and then said, 'And are we not to make haste and cut the Line tomorrow, so?' 'No,' said Jack, smiling at him. 'If this wind holds...tomorrow you should be quite near your old friends the St Paul's rocks.' 'Is that right? What joy: I must tell poor Martin. Tell, what was the rondo you were playing?' 'Molter.' 'Molter?' 'Yes. You know, Molter Vivace. You must have heard of Molter Vivace. Oh ha, ha, ha!' When at last he had had his laugh out, he wiped his eyes and wheezed, 'It came to me in a flash, a brilliant illumination, like when you fire off blue lights. Lord, ain't I a rattle? I shall set up for a wit yet, and make my fortune. Molter Vivace...I must tell Sophie. I am writing her a letter, to be put aboard some homeward-bound merchantman, if we meet one off Brazil next week, which is probable. Molter Vivace, oh dear me.' 'He that would make a pun would pick a pocket,' said Stephen, 'and that miserable quibble is not even a pun, but a vile clench. Who is this Molter?' he asked, picking up the neatly-written score. 'Johann Meichior Molter, a German of the last age,' said Jack. 'Our parson at home thinks the world of him. I copied this piece, mislaid it, and found it ten minutes ago tucked behind our Corelli in C major. Shall we attempt the Corelli now, it being such a triumphal day?'
160-2: Stephen tries coca leaves for the first time. The Peruvian explains how it will let them resume their burdens "'with the greatest ease, we walked fast up the cruel slope through the driving snow, over the top and so down into kinder weather'" and Stephen says, "'You do not surprise me...ever since the first acullico that you were so good as to give me I have felt my mind glow, my mental and no doubt physical powers increase. I have little doubt that I could swim the river that lies before us. I shall not do so, however. I prefer to enjoy your conversation and my present state of remarkable wellbeing -- no fatigue, no hunger, no perplexity of mind, but a power of apprehension and synthesis that I have rarely known before. Your coca, sir, is the most virtuous simple I have ever met with. I had read about it in Garcilasso de la Vega and in Faulkner's account, but I had no idea it was a hundredth part as efficacious.' Later Martin feels guilty watching everyone work while he and Stephen go off to see natural wonders: "'The back of my hand to guilt,' said Stephen, lively and cheerful in spite of his wholly sleepless night. 'Let us walk out and view the country. I am told that there is a path leading behind the mangrove-swamp and through the forest to an open glade where a certain palm-tree grows. Its name I forget, but it bears a round and crimson fruit. We have so little time: it would be a pity to waste it in an idle beating of one's breast.'"
The laudanum he had returned to at last because after mature and wholly objective consideration he had been brought to see that as a physician he was required to sleep well enough to perform his duty the next day; furthermore the poppy had not been created idly, and a rejection of the natural balms provided was contumelious pride, as heretical as the notion that because a thing was pleasant it was also sinful; and in any case it was St. Abdon's day.
169-71: 'There have been times, my dearest soul,' wrote Stephen to Diana in a letter dated 'from the shore of the Sao Francisco', 'when you were not altogether pleased with Jack Aubrey, but if you had watched him this last fortnight I believe you would allow him a certain heroic quality, a certain greatness of soul. As I said, a drunken pilot ran the ship on to a sand-bank in the middle of this river at the very height of the highest tide, and although we pulled with all our might we could not get her off; nor would she shift at the next tide which, though high, was not high enough to raise her from her oozy bed. After that there was no hope until the change of the moon, which would bring another spring tide: this was a comforting reflexion, but every day that passed set another hundred or two hundred miles between us and our quarry, a quarry upon which all Jack's happiness, his professional career and his reputation depends. Furthermore it was not at all sure that the next spring tide would reach the extraordinary height of the flood that was our undoing. Yet from that moment to this I have not heard Jack complain or cry out 'Oh d--n it all', or any of those still warmer expressions that are so often used at sea and which he is so very free with on trifling occasions. Certainly he has required everybody to work very, very hard all day long, since all the cannon have had to be taken to the shore, together with countless tons of provisions and stores, and at low water a channel had to be attempted to be dug to make it easier for the ship to be plucked off when the moment came, while the rudder also had to be rehung; but with all this I do not remember an oath, scarcely a rebuke. And the curious thing is that this coolness absolutely shocks the men; they look at him nervously, and go about their duties with wonderful diligence.'" Then he sings the praises of coca leaves, and says he recommended them to Jack but "he said that if they did away with sleep and hunger they were not for him -- in this crisis he needed his sleep and he must have his meals -- in short, he would not take physic till the ship was afloat, no, not for a king's ransom."
197: Jack is visiting the sick crewmembers in the sick-bay, "where he knew exactly what to say to each man and boy," and says to Joe Plaice, "'At least some good has come out of this: at least nobody will ever be able to say, 'Poor old Plaice is down to his last shilling.' 'How do you make that out, sir?' asked Plaice, closing one eye and smiling in anticipation. 'Why, because there are three of 'em screwed to your head, ha, ha, ha!' said his Captain. 'You are not unlike Shakespeare,' observed Stephen, as they walked back to the cabin. 'So I am often told by those who read my letters and dispatches,' said Jack, 'but what makes you say so at this particular moment?' 'Because his clowns make quips of that bludgeoning, knock-me-down nature. You have only to add marry, come up, or go to, with a pox on it, and it is pure Gammon, or Bacon, or what you will.' 'That is only your jealousy,' said Jack. 'What do you say to some music tonight?' 'I should like it extremely. I shall not play well, being quite fagged out, as our American captive says.' 'But Stephen, we say fagged out too.' 'Do we? I was not aware. Still, at all events we do not say it with that touching colonial twang, like a cockle-woman's horn on Dublin Quay.'"..."'Stephen, you will not mind doing without our usual toasted cheese? There is only just enough to make a presentable dish for my guests.' They played without cheese; they played far into the night, until Stephen's head bowed over his 'cello between two movements: he excused himself and crept off, still half asleep."
224-6: "Howard came below and told them that a strange enormous thing rather like a sea elephant had come within range: he had fired, but had hit only the young one that was with it, a veil of mist coming between him and his mark at the crucial moment. He wished they had seen the animal; it was prodigious like a human being, though bigger, and what he might call grey in colour. He wished very much they had seen it. 'I am sure you mean very kindly, Mr Howard,' said Stephen. 'But let me beg you not to shoot more creatures than we can collect or dissect, or than the men can eat, for all love.' 'Oh, you have never been a one for sporting, Doctor,' said Howard, with a laugh. 'Why, you could shoot all day long in these waters, was you fond of sporting; just now I had the prettiest right and left among a flight of cormorants. I shall go straight back to it; I have two men loading for me.'"..."It was a wailing, a great long desperately sad 0 - o - o of immense volume, sometimes rising to a shriek, unlike any sound that had come from the sea in the experience of the oldest man aboard, and it circled the ship, coming quite close on either side: sometimes a form could be made out, but never clearly. In any case there were few who dared to look. 'What can it be?' asked Jack. 'I cannot tell,' said Stephen, 'but suppose it to be the creature whose young one was shot. Perhaps it was wounded, and perhaps it has now died.' The voice grew louder still, almost intolerable before it broke off in a dying sob."..."'Judas Priest, what are you all standing about for? Mr Mowett, lanterns will be allowed on the berth-deck tonight after lights out. Master-at-arms, take notice of that.'"
228: After the gunner hangs himself, following the murders of his wife, Hollom and Higgins: "'Have you ever brought a determined suicide back to life? Have you seen the despair on his face when he realizes that he has failed -- that it is all to do again? It seems to me a strange thing to decide for another. Surely living or dying is a matter between a man and his Maker or Unmaker.' 'I cannot think you are right,' said Martin, and he set out the contrary view. 'Sure you speak with great authorities on your side,' said Stephen. He stood up and leant his ear to the gunner's chest, then opened his eye, gazing into it with a candle. 'But in any case he is now gone beyond my interference, God rest his soul.'"
247-8: Jack has just given the order to lay a course for the Marquesas without even stopping for tortoises. "With this he went below, looking thoroughly pleased. A few minutes later Stephen hurried into the cabin. 'When are we to stop?' he cried. 'You promised we should stop.' 'The promise was subject to the requirements of the service: listen, Stephen, here I have my tide, my current and my wind all combined -- my enemy with a fine head-start so that there is not a moment to be lost - could I conscientiously delay for the sake of an iguano or a beetle -- interesting, no doubt, but of no immediate application in warfare? Candidly, now?'" They argue about Stephen's wish to be put ashore with Martin to walk and meet the ship on the other side. "'Stephen,' said Jack, 'if the wind and the tide had been against us, I should have said yes: they are not. I am obliged to say no.' Landing them through the surf would be difficult; getting them off again on the west side might be quite impossible; and then the 'brisk walking' of two besotted natural philosophers across a remote oceanic island filled with plants and creatures unknown to science might last until the frigate sank at her moorings or grounded on her beef bones -- he had seen Maturin on shore before this with nothing more than a Madeiran woodlouse to make him lose all sense of time. But he was sorry for his friend's disappointment, so much keener than he had expected from the desperately sterile look of the islands; he was even sorrier to see a tide of anger rise in Stephen's usually impassive face, and to hear the harsh tone in which he said, 'Very well, sir; I must submit to superior force, I find. I must be content to form part of a merely belligerent expedition, hurrying past inestimable pearls, bent solely on destruction, neglecting all discovery -- incapable of spending five minutes on discovery. I shall say nothing about the corruption of power or its abuse; I shall only observe that for my part I look upon a promise as binding and that until the present I must confess it had never occurred to me that you might not be of the same opinion -- that you might have two words.' 'My promise was necessarily conditional,' said Jack. 'I command a King's ship, not a private yacht. You are forgetting yourself.' Then, much more kindly, and with a smile, 'But I tell you what it is, Stephen, I shall keep in as close with the shore as can be, and you shall look at the creatures with my best achromatic glass,' -- reaching for a splendid fivelens Dollond, an instrument that Stephen was never allowed to use, because of his tendency to drop telescopes into the sea. 'You may take your achromatic glass and...' began Stephen, but he checked himself and after the slightest pause went on, 'You are very good, but I have one of my own. I shall trouble you no longer.'" Then he goes and seethes that everyone is being nice to him out of sympathy. "He had always prided himself on maintaining the volto sciolto, pensieri stretti rather better than most men, and here were illiterate tarpaulins comforting him for a distress that he could have sworn was perfectly undetectable. With a surly satisfaction he observed that in spite of the changing tide the Surprise did in fact make but a slow passage of her two legs, for the breeze came foul upon her twice: they slowly passed two excellent strands where a boat could have landed them and taken them off, the first in a cove beyond the reef where the blackened carcass of the whaler lay; and it was clear to him that he and Martin might have crept across the island on all fours and still have been in time. 'In half the time,' he muttered, beating the rail in an extremity of frustration."
250: "Even so, even with this physical and moral triumph, the next day found him still thoroughly out of humour, and when Adams observed that the Captain was to be the gunroom's guest at dinner -- that the dinner was to be an uncommon fine one too, quite a Lord Mayor's feast -- he said, 'Oh, indeed,' in a tone that showed no kind of pleasure. 'I have known that fellow hang about in port,' he said to himself, glancing at Jack from the lee gangway as the Surprise ran smoothly over the vast South Sea, pure blue now from rim to unimaginably distant rim, 'I have known him hang about most shamefully when it was a question of a wench -- Nelson too and many a post-captain, many an admiral when adultery was concerned -- no fine-spun scruples about the King's ship then. No, no: scruples are kept for natural philosophy alone, or any useful discovery. His soul to the Devil, false, hypocritical dog; but he is probably unaware of his falsity -- pravum est cor omnium, the heart is perverse above all things and unsearchable. Who shall know it?' Yet although Stephen was of a saturnine and revengeful temperament he had been brought up to a high notion of hospitality. The Captain was the gunroom's guest, and the ship's surgeon was not to sit there in silent dogged resentment. Putting a considerable force on himself Stephen uttered four civil remarks, and after a proper interval he said, 'A glass of wine with you, sir,' bowing low.
261-5: Stephen, trying to see phosphorescent organisms out the stern windows while the crew is singing and dancing on the forecastle and making a lot of noise, falls out the window into the sea and Jack dives in after him, but no one can hear them yelling to be pulled out. "Stephen said, 'I am extremely concerned, Jack, that my awkwardness should have brought you into such very grave danger.' 'Bless you,' said Jack, 'it ain't so very grave as all that. Killick is bound to come into the cabin in half an hour or so, and Mowett will put the ship about directly.'" The water is warm, Jack isn't worried at first, then he stops to figure how the current is moving them and sees that Stephen is becoming distressed. "'Stephen,' he said, pushing him, for Stephen's head was thrown back so far that he could not easily hear, 'Stephen, turn over, put your arms round my neck, and we will swim for a little.' Then as he felt Stephen's feet on the back of his legs, 'You have not kicked off your shoes. Do not you know you must kick off your shoes? What a fellow you are, Stephen.' So they went on, sometimes swimming gently, sometimes floating in the luke-warm sea, rising and falling on the very long, regular swell. They did not talk much, though Stephen did observe that it was all very much easier, now that he was allowed to change position from time to time; even the act of floating came to him more naturally with use - 'I believe I may set up as a Triton.' And on another occasion he said, 'I am very deeply indebted to you, Jack, for supporting me in this way.'" They see a whale and doze a little and Jack realizes that no one was likely to have realized they needed rescue before the morning, and they're already shivering. "Almost wholly useless reflection, but even so better than the piercing, sterile, pointless regrets that had tormented him for the last few hours, regrets about leaving Sophie surrounded with lawsuits, regrets for not having managed things more cleverly, bitter regret at having to leave life behind and all those he loved. The earth turned and the ocean with it; the water in which they swam turned towards the sun. Over in the west there was the last of the night, and in the east, to windward, the first of the day; and there, clear against the lightening sky, lay a vessel."
Rescued by Polynesian women who appear to collect male genitals as trophies, Jack and Stephen tend hogs and negotiate going to the head with women watching them. "Jack had not been back to his pestle five minutes, with a look of profound relief on his face, before the dancing stopped and the ill-looking bitch delivered a long address, during which she often pointed at the men, growing steadily more passionate...at last they came forward, dancing heavily behind their leader, who held the obsidian knife in her hand. The effect would have been grotesque but for the fact that the jaw-bones they had now hung round their necks were in most cases quite fresh and that drunk or not they handled their weapons with great dexterity." Stephen interrupts their debate "and pointing at Jack's loins he said, 'Bah, bah, bah. Taboo,' his third Polynesian word. It had an instant effect. 'Taboo?' they said 'Taboo!' in every tone of affirmation, astonishment, and concern, every tone but that of scepticism. The tension fell at once: the club-bearers moved away, and Stephen sat down again with his hog, which had begun to whimper." They are left on a little island.
281-2: Jack, who has been assuring Stephen all along that Surprise will come rescue them even though he really knows better, climbs a tree to get coconuts for breakfast and sees Surprise. Stephen is more concerned with getting his breakfast than cheering, and asks, "'No huzzay? No capers?' 'Why should I cry huzzay, or cut capers?' 'Because of the ship, of course.' 'But you always said it would be there. Why did you not choose green coconuts?" Later, Stephen is inspecting some crystalline limestone, and says, 'How can such things possibly come about? There is the boat. I have it,' he cried. 'This rock was brought tangled in the roots of a tree...what a discovery!' 'What did you mean when you said boat?' 'Why, our boat, of course. The big one, the launch, come to fetch us, as you always said it would. Lord, Jack,' he said, looking up with an entirely different expression, 'how in God's name shall I ever face them, at all?' He was still there, sitting by his rock, when the Surprise's launch, following her Captain's directions from the height of his palm-tree, dashed through the perilous gap in the reef, crossed the lagoon and ran nose-up on to the shore."
295: "Jack Aubrey lay in his cot, savouring his resurrection; this was Sunday morning and according to ancient naval custom the day's life began half an hour earlier than usual - hammocks were piped up at six bells rather than seven - so that the ship's people could wash, shave and make themselves fine for divisions and church. Ordinarily he was up and about with the rest, but today he deliberately took his ease, indulging in perfectly relaxed sloth and in the comfort of his bed, infinitely soft and well-moulded compared with harsh, scaly palm-fronds, and infinitely warm and dry compared with the open sea. The usual swabs and holystones scouring the deck a few feet above his head had not woken him, because Mowett had allowed nothing but silent, largely symbolic sweeping abaft the mainmast. But for all Mowett's care Jack was pretty well aware of the time of the day: the intensity of the light and the smell of roasting coffee were in themselves a clock; yet still he lay, taking conscious pleasure in being alive." Killick comes in with a towel: "'Are you going to take a dip?'" Jack says no, he would prefer a pot of hot water: "His skin and particularly the rolls of fat round his belly were still strangely waterlogged, and at present sea-bathing had no attraction for him. 'Is the Doctor about yet?' he called, stropping his razor. 'No, sir,' said Killick from the great cabin, where he was laying the breakfast-table."
301-2: Stephen asks Martin whether he saw the lovely young Athene in the pahi. "'No,' said Martin, 'I saw nothing but a swarthy crew of ill-looking female savages, full of malignant fury, a disgrace to their sex.' 'I dare say they had been ill-used, the creatures,' said Stephen. 'Perhaps they had,' said Martin. 'But to carry resentment to the point of the emasculation you described seems to me inhuman, and profoundly wicked.' 'Oh, as far as unsexing is concerned, who are we to throw stones? With us any girl that cannot find a husband is unsexed. If she is very high or very low she may go her own way, with the risks entailed therein, but otherwise she must either have no sex or be disgraced. She burns, and she is ridiculed for burning. To say nothing of male tyranny - a wife or a daughter being a mere chattel in most codes of law or custom - and brute force - to say nothing of that, hundreds of thousands of girls are in effect unsexed every generation: and barren women are as much despised as eunuchs. I do assure you, Martin, that if I were a woman I should march out with a flaming torch and a sword; I should emasculate right and left. As for the women of the pahi, I am astonished at their moderation... It is the black shame of the world that they should be deprived of the joys of love - Tiresias said they were ten times as great as those enjoyed by men, or was it thirty? - leaving aside the far more dubious pleasures of motherhood and keeping house.' 'Tiresias represents no more than the warm imaginings of Homer: decent women take no pleasure in the act, but only seek to - ' 'Nonsense.' Then they are interrupted by the arrival of 'Himself' and Stephen threatens Martin with a slime-draught.
306: 'Lord, Stephen,' said Jack when they were alone, 'how pleasant it is to be aboard again, don't you find? ... Only this morning I was thinking how right they were to say it was better to be a dead horse than a live lion.' He gazed out of the scuttle, obviously going over the words in his mind. 'No. I mean better to flog a dead horse than a live lion.' 'I quite agree.' 'Yet even that's not quite right, neither. I know there is a dead horse in it somewhere; but I am afraid I'm brought by the lee this time, though I rather pride myself on proverbs, bringing them in aptly, you know, and to the point.' 'Never distress yourself, brother; there is no mistake, I am sure. It is a valuable saying, and one that admonishes us never to underestimate our enemy, for whereas flogging a dead horse is child's play, doing the same to a lion is potentially dangerous, even though one may take a long spoon.'
346-7: Jack blames himself for being on shore with the Norfolk's fractious crew instead of being on Surprise. "She was not seen on Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday, although the weather was so good...Jack blamed himself extremely. He should have stayed in his ship: his presence on shore had done nothing more towards furthering Stephen's operation than that of any of the other officers. He had behaved like an anxious old woman... 'I fear you are grieving for the Surprise, brother,' said Stephen as they sat alone outside the hut, looking down to the evening sea. 'I trust you do not despair of our friends?' 'Despair? Oh Lord, no,' cried Jack. 'She is a sound, well-found, weatherly ship, and Mowett has a crew of thoroughpaced seamen.'" In the end, Surprise rescues them.
25: "'Your surgeon sounds a jewel,'" says Sir William, the admiral with a fondness for beautiful young men. Jack replies, "'He is my particular friend, sir: we have sailed together these ten years and more.'"
33-6: "The young man began walking towards the quarterdeck...he had
something of the air of a Quaker or a seminarist, but of an uncommonly powerful, athletic seminarist, like those from the western parts of Ireland who might be seen walking about the streets of Salamanca; and it was in the very tones of an Irish seminarist that he now addressed Stephen, taking off his hat as he did so. 'Dr Maturin, sir, I believe?' 'The same, sir,' said Stephen, returning his salute. 'The same, at your service.' He spoke a little at random, for the bare-headed young man standing there in the full sun before him was the spit, the counterpart, the image of Jack Aubrey with some twenty years and several stone taken off, done in shining ebony. It made no odds that the young man's hair was a tight cap of black curls rather than Jack's long yellow locks, nor that his nose had no Roman bridge; his whole essence, his person, his carriage was the same, and even the particular tilt of his head as he flow leant towards Stephen with a modest, deferential look." Later, "Jack looked keenly at the young man's face - it was strangely familiar: surely he must have seen him before...he looked up, and again this uneasy sense of familiarity struck him; but he said, 'It was exceedingly kind of you to bring me this letter. I hope you left everyone at Ashgrove Cottage quite well?'" Sam says the children had the chickenpox but Sophie was well. "'My name is Panda, sir, Samuel Panda, and my mother was Sally Mputa. Since I was going to England with the Fathers she desired me to give you these,' - holding out a package - 'and that is how I came to go to Ashgrove Cottage, hoping to find you there.' 'God's my life,' said Jack, and after a moment he slowly began to open the package. It contained a sperm-whale's tooth upon which he had laboriously engraved HMS Resolution under close-reefed topsails when he was a very young man, younger even than the tall youth facing him; it also contained a small bundle of feathers and elephant's hair bound together with a strip of leopard's skin. 'That is a charm to keep you from drowning,' observed Samuel Panda. 'How kind,' said Jack automatically. They looked at one another with a naked searching, eager on the one side, astonished on the other. There were few mirrors hanging in Jack's part of the ship - only a little shaving-glass in his sleeping-cabin - but the extraordinarily elaborate and ingenious piece of furniture that Stephen's wife Diana had given him and that was chiefly used as a music-stand had a large one inside the lid. Jack opened it and they stood there side by side, each comparing, each silently, intently, looking for himself in the other. 'I am astonished,' said Jack at last. 'I had no idea, no idea in the world...you are very welcome, I am sure. And now you have found me, what can I do for you? Had it been earlier, as I could have wished, it would have been easier; but as I said, I had not the least notion...'" Sam explains that he works in the mission. 'Sam, do not tell me you are a Papist,' cried Jack. 'I am sorry to disappoint you, sir,' said Sam, smiling, 'but a Papist I am, and so much so that I hope in time to be a priest if ever I can have a dispensation. At present I am only in minor orders.' 'Well,' said Jack, recollecting himself, 'one of my best friends is a Catholic. Dr Maturin - you met him.'"
42-3: Stephen talks to Jack about Sam. "'He is a fine young man,' observed Stephen. 'Ain't he?' said Jack. 'How I hope young George will be such another...still, I could wish he were not black.' 'There is nothing wrong with being black, brother...Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was an African: and he too had a son born out of wedlock, as no doubt you will recall.' Jack worries too about Sam being Catholic given the prejudices in England. "If he had been white and a Protestant, he might have been an admiral - he might have hoisted his flag! A fellow with his parts, quick, cheerful, lively, resourceful, modest, and good company, was all cut out to be a sailor...'" Stephen says that being black and a Catholic "he may become an African bishop, like St Augustine, and wear a mitre and carry a crook: indeed, he may even become the Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign Pontiff, and don the triple tiara.'" Jack says, "'I am glad to hear what you tell about your saint, however...if a saint and a Father of the Church can - can have an irregular connexion, why, that is a comfort to a man.' 'So it is too; though I believe he was not a practising saint at the time.'
46: Typical: "'Nonsense,' said Stephen, stepping on to the gang board. 'I am going to the Irresistible. They receive me in this - this shaloop, this embarkation, like a dog in a game of skittles,' he muttered in a discontented tone, creeping on. A slight tremor from a distant wave traversed the plank; he staggered, uttering a faint shriek, but Jack pinned his elbows from behind, ran him up, over the gunwale and into the boat, where powerful hands passed him aft like a parcel to the stern-sheets. The same powerful hands propelled him up the flagship's accommodation-ladder, adjuring him to watch his step, to mind out, and to clap on with both hands. Jack, duly piped aboard, had already been received with full ceremony and carried aft; and by the time Stephen reached the quarterdeck he was no longer to be seen.
100-101: Jack has been up all night on a chase. "Killick brought him the pot and some very old rye bread toasted and asked in a subdued, dutiful tone whether there was anything else he would like. 'Not for the moment,' said Jack. 'I suppose the Doctor is not about?' 'Oh no, sir.' Stephen was a bad sleeper, but he disapproved of the habitual use of soporifics on medical and moral grounds and he usually delayed the taking of his pill or draught until two in the morning, so that he was rarely to be seen before eight or nine o'clock. 'When he is up, say that I should be happy to see him and Mr Martin to dinner, wind and weather permitting. And pass the word for the officer of the watch.'" Later, "Shaved and shining after a cat-nap, Jack was in fine form; yesterday's intense frustration belonged to history; he had not felt so well or so alive since the horrible days of the court-martial, and he enjoyed his company. Neither Stephen nor Martin was a sailor nor indeed anything remotely like a sailor; neither believed in the sacred majesty of a post captain and both talked quite freely - a great relief. Furthermore, the glass was sinking, a sure sign of wind; and throughout the meal the steady chipping of shot told him that all was well on deck. A chase in sight, his ship in perfect order, and a blow coming on: this was real sailoring - this was why men went to sea."
141: In England, Stephen gets Diana's letter: "'Why should a foolish marriage vow,/Which long ago was made,/Oblige us to each other now,/When passion is decayed?'" She has gone to Sweden with Jagiello, since "he paraded his redheaded lady up and down the Mediterranean, without the least disguise," and "with all Stephen's faults she had never, never expected him to behave like a scrub." She asks him to think kindly of her. "He would no more have thought unkindly of her than he would of a falcon that had flown free, imagining some injury - he had known very proud, high-tempered falcons, passionately attached and passionately offended - but he was wounded to the heart, and he grieved. At first with a generalized grief that included his own desolate loss, so intensely that he clasped his hands and rocked to and fro, then more particularly for her...at least she was independent: she did not have to rely on any man's generosity. Yet even this was not certain: at one time she had had great quantities of money, but whether she had invested enough of it to be assured of a reasonable income for the rest of her life he did not know... 'Why, Stephen, there you are,' cried Jack, walking in at this point. 'How glad I am to see you.' Stephen explains about Diana and asks about the red-haired Laura Fielding, "Did it have that appearance? Did I seem to be Laura's lover?' 'I believe people generally thought - it looked rather as though...' 'And yet I explained it as fully as I could,' said Stephen, almost to himself." Jack invites Stephen to Ashgrove. 'I doubt I shall be free until Tuesday,' said Stephen. 'I had just as soon stay a little longer,' said Jack. 'Let us say Tuesday, then.'"
160-1: Stephen is furious with the administrator Lewis who seems to believe he wants money from the Admiralty. "'Christ's blood in heaven, you ignorant incompetent whey-faced nestlecock,' said Stephen in a low venomous tone, leaning forward, 'do you think I am a hired spy, an informer? That I have a master, a paymaster, for God's love?' To all his present bitterness there was added the spectacle of an efficient intelligence service threatening ruin, and his own dedicated, highly-skilled form of warfare gone. 'You little silly man,' he said. Lewis strained back in his chair, looking shocked and stupid: the look on Stephen's face appalled him. He said 'Calm yourself, my dear sir, calm yourself.' Stephen's hand shot across the desk, seized Lewis's nose, shook it so furiously from side to side so fast that the hair-powder flew, then wrung it left and right, right and left; he flung the standish into the fire, wiped his bloody hand on Lewis's neckcloth, said 'If you wish to find me, sir, I am at Black's,' and walked out." Sir Joseph meets him at Black's. "'Listen, do you know an animal called Lewis in the Admiralty?...Would he be a fighting man, at all? I was led to pull him by the nose just now, and I told him where he might find me, if he chose to have satisfaction.' 'No, no. Oh no. He would be far more likely to have you taken up and sworn to keep the peace; but in the present case that would never be allowed. No. Good heavens no. But I am glad to hear what you tell me, about pulling his nose.' 'And I am glad to hear your opinion. Had he been a man of blood I should have had to beg my friend to remain, and he is so longing to be away to his wife it is pitiful to see.'"
178-9: Stephen walks to Ashgrove. "'Why do I feel such an intense pleasure, such an intense satisfaction?' asked Stephen. For some time he searched for a convincing reply, but finding none he observed 'The fact is that I do.' He sat on as the sun's rays came slowly down through the trees, lower and lower, and when the lowest reached a branch not far above him it caught a dewdrop poised upon a leaf. The drop instantly blazed crimson, and a slight movement of his head made it show all the colours of the spectrum with extraordinary purity, from a red almost too deep to be seen through all the others to the ultimate violet and back again. Some minutes later a cock pheasant's explosive call broke the silence and the spell and he stood up. At the edge of the wood the blackbirds were louder still, and they had been joined by blackcaps, thrushes, larks, monotonous pigeons, and a number of birds that should never have sung at all. His way now led him through ordinary country, field after field, eventually reaching Jack's woods, where the honey buzzards had once nested. But it was ordinary country raised to the highest power: the mounting sun shone through a faint veil with never a hint of glare, giving the colours a freshness and an intensity Stephen had never seen equalled. The green world and the gentle, pure blue sky might just have been created; and as the day warmed a hundred scents drifted through the air. 'Returning thanks at any length is virtually impossible,' he reflected, sitting on a stile and watching two hares at play, sitting up and fibing at one another, then leaping and running and leaping again. 'How few manage even five phrases with any effect. And how intolerable are most dedications too, even the best. Perhaps the endless repetition of
flat, formal praise' - for the Gloria was still running in his head - 'is an attempt at overcoming this, an attempt at expressing gratitude by another means. I shall put this thought to Jack,' he said, having considered for a moment. The hares raced away out of eight and he walked on, singing in a harsh undertone 'Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus altissimus' until a cuckoo called away on his left hand: cuckoo, cuckoo, loud and clear, followed by a cackling laugh and answered by a fainter cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo far over on the right. His happiness sank at once and he walked on with his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back.
181: Jack has his men playing on his fields when Stephen arrives, not realizing. "Three fielders ran in Stephen's direction, all gazing up and spreading their hands, while others called 'Heads, heads!' or 'Stand from under'. Stephen's mind was far away: he had noticed neither the stroke nor the flight of the ball, but one of the few things he had learnt at sea - learnt painfully and thoroughly - was that Stand from under usually preceded, but only just preceded, a downpour of boiling pitch, or the fall of a very heavy block, or that of a needle-pointed marline-spike, and he hurried anxiously away, crouching, with his hands protecting his head, an unlucky move that brought him into collision with one fielder who was running backwards and with another already poised where the ball was about to come down. They fell in a confused heap from which he was extracted amidst cries of 'It's the Doctor,' 'Are you hurt, sir?' and 'Why can't you look where you are a-coming to, you clumsy ox?' - this to the Tartarus's yeoman of the sheets, who had held the catch in spite of everything and who rose through the welter of limbs, triumphantly holding it up. 'Well, Stephen,' said Jack, leading him to the refreshment cart, after he had been brushed down and put to rights, with his wig set straight on his head, 'so you have come down by the night coach, I find: how glad I am you found a place. I did not look to see you till tomorrow, or I should have left a note. You must have been quite amazed to find the house all ahoo. Will you take a can of beer, or should you prefer cold punch?'" Sophie is in Ireland where her sister is having a baby and the house is "all ahoo."
184: Jack, thrilled to learn how his stocks have done, "said with a singularly sweet smile, 'Did I tell you I mean to buy Surprise? She can moor in a private ordinary at Porchester.' 'Heavens, Jack! Is not this a very onerous undertaking? I seem to remember that Government gave twenty thousand pounds for the Chesapeake.' 'Yes, but that was mostly to encourage others to go and do likewise. Selling out of the service is another thing. I doubt Surprise will fetch anything like so much.' 'How does one set about buying a ship?' 'You have to be there yourself, with cash in hand -well hit, sir, well hit.'" And back they go to the game.
204: Stephen "knew little of the English law, but he was almost certain that Jack Aubrey was undone...he had had a particularly trying time with Sophie when he called in at Ashgrove Cottage. He was very deeply attached to her, and she to him; but in this instance her tears, her unconcealed distress and her need for support were something of a disappointment. Of course, exhaustion from her long journey and the sudden overthrow of her happiness accounted for a great deal, but it seemed to him that Diana, or at least his idealized Diana, would have shown more courage, more fortitude, more manliness. Diana might well have used foul language, but surely he would never have heard the faintest echo of Mrs Williams from her. And surely Diana, having failed to bribe or bamboozle those sent to arrest her husband, would have followed him with a change of stockings and a couple of clean shirts in spite of his direct command, instead of wringing her hands. For a while he twisted the knife in his wound, thinking of Diana as a tigress."
226-8: Stephen tries to warn Jack about the judges and the court he may face, particularly the lawyers. "'It is all of a piece throughout: they are men who tend to resign their own conscience to another's keeping, or to disregard it entirely. To the question "What are your sentiments when you are asked to defend a man you know to be guilty?" many will reply "I do not know him to be guilty until the judge, who has heard both sides, states that he is guilty." This miserable sophistry, which disregards not only epistemology but also the intuitive perception that informs all daily intercourse, is sometimes merely formular, yet I have known men who have so prostituted their intelligence that they believe it.' 'Oh come, Stephen. Surely saying that all lawyers are bad is about as wise as saying that all sailors are good, ain't it?' 'I do not say that all lawyers are bad, but I do maintain that the general tendency is bad: standing up in a court for whichever side has paid you, affecting warmth and conviction, and doing everything you can to win the case, whatever your private opinion may be, will soon dull any fine sense of honour. The mercenary soldier is not a valued creature, but at least he risks his life, whereas these men merely risk their next fee.' Jack talks about barristers he has met, saying, "'I do not know how it may be in Ireland or upon the Continent, but I think that upon the whole English lawyers are a perfectly honourable set of men. After all, everyone agrees that English justice is the best in the world.' Stephen tries to talk about how judges too can be corrupt, saying, "'I am concerned with shaking your confidence in the perfect impartial justice of an English court of law, and to tell you that your judge and prosecutor are of the kind I have described. Lord Quinborough is a notoriously violent, overbearing, rude, ill-tempered man: he is also a member of the Cabinet, while your father and his friends are the most violent members of the opposition...allow him to hint that your father was something less than discreet.' 'Yes,' said Jack in a strong decided voice, 'you speak very much as a friend and I am most deeply beholden to you; but there is one thing you forget, and that is the jury. I do not know how it may be in Ireland or in foreign parts, but in England we have a jury: that is what makes our justice the best in the world. The lawyers may be as bad as you say, but it seems to me that if twelve ordinary men hear a plain truthful account they will believe it. And if by any wild chance they come down hard on me, why, I hope I can bear it. Tell me, Stephen, did you remember my fiddle-strings?' 'Oh, by my soul, Jack,' cried Stephen, clutching his pocket, 'I am afraid I forgot them entirely.'"
234-5: Sir Joseph first broaches the topic of an expedition to Chile or Peru to support independence, a wholly unofficial expedition. "'Although perhaps the time may not yet be quite ripe, it is not impossible that I may be asked to approach you on the subject. I perfectly see that it cannot arouse the same feelings in you as the independence of Catalonia; but when the proposition was floating in the air I reflected upon the opportunities -the wonderful combination of opportunities for a natural philosopher and, if I may say so, a natural liberator.' 'You are too kind by far. Though indeed, the opportunities would be very great, greater even than Humboldt's, and at any other time my heart would beat to quarters at the prospect; but just now...' 'Of course, of course. I meant only to make a vague general reference, to learn whether you would be opposed in principle or whether the two eventualities might possibly coincide."
259-64: Sir Joseph tells Stephen that is had been made clear that he will not sail for South America unless Aubrey is in command of the ship, so Stephen can rest easy about Jack's possibly going to jail. Instead they learn he has been sentenced to the pillory; Sir Joseph advises hiring bruisers to protect Jack; Stephen asks what must be done to keep Jack's name from being struck off the list, or to have him restored, and goes on a number of visits he expects to be fruitless in this regard. Then Stephen goes to visit Jack, hears him playing a severe fugue, tells him of his own plan to buy Surprise and have Jack command her as a privateer, Jack agrees to it, then Stephen advises him to take a draught before the pillory to avoid pain. "It is bound to be unpleasant, like a toothache: I have given you many a draught for the toothache, so I have, and here is one' - taking a small bottle from his pocket - 'that will make the pillory pass like little more than a dream: disagreeable, but only faintly disagreeable, and at a distance. I have often used it myself, with great effect.' 'Thankee, Stephen,' said Jack, setting the bottle on the mantelshelf. Stephen saw that he had no intention of taking it, and that the underlying pain was quite untouched. For to Jack Aubrey the fact of no longer belonging to the Navy counted more than a thousand pillories, the loss of fortune, loss of rank, and loss of future. It was in a way a loss of being, and to those who knew him well it gave his eyes, his whole face, the strangest look.
265-7: Sailors have filled the alleys on the day Jack will be pilloried. "Davis, a very big, ugly, dangerous man who had sailed with Jack in many commissions, had an even shorter way of dealing with Wray's gang of genuine bruisers, who stood out most surprisingly in their flash clothes and low-crowned hats among the now almost solid naval mass - most of the citizens, even the apprentices and the street-boys hawking pails of filth had withdrawn beyond the barrier or to neighbouring buildings. Davis, with his four uglier brothers and a dumb Negro bosun's mate, went straight to them and in a thick voice, choking with fury, said 'Bugger off.' He watched them go and then shouldered his brutal way through his shipmates to where Stephen was standing by the steps of the pillory with the few pugilists his thief-taker had managed to engage - men equally conspicuous. To them he said 'And you bugger off too. We mean you no harm, gents, but you bugger off too.' There was white spittle at his mouth and he was breathing very hard. Stephen nodded to his men and they sidled away towards St Michael's. As they reached the church its clock struck the quarter, and Mr Essex gave the word at last. Jack was led out of the dark room into the strong light, and as they guided him up the steps he could see nothing for the glare. 'Your head here, sir, if you please,' said the sheriff's man in a low, nervous, conciliating voice, 'and your hands just here.' The man was slowly fumbling with the bolt, hinge and staple, and as Jack stood there with his hands in the lower half-rounds, his sight cleared: he saw that the broad street was filled with silent, attentive men, some in long togs, some in shore-going rig, some in plain frocks, but all perfectly recognizable as seamen. And officers, by the dozen, by the score: midshipmen and officers. Babbington was there, immediately in front of the pillory, facing him with his hat off, and Pullings, Stephen of course, Mowett, Dundas. . . He nodded to them, with almost no change in his iron expression, and his eye moved on: Parker, Rowan, Williamson, Hervey...and men from long, long ago, men he could scarcely name, lieutenants and commanders putting their promotion at risk, midshipmen and master's mates their commissions, warrant-officers their advancement. 'The head a trifle forward, if you please2 sir,' murmured the sheriff's man, and the upper half of the wooden frame came down, imprisoning his defenceless face. He heard the click of the bolt and then in the dead silence a strong voice cry 'Off hats'. With one movement hundreds of broad-brimmed tarpaulin-covered hats flew off and the cheering began, the fierce full-throated cheering he had so often heard in battle."
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