where_away | Entries tagged with book: 3 (hms surprise)

Stephen was a wretched patient; sometimes he looked to M’Alister as an omniscient being who would certainly produce the one true physic; sometimes the ship resounded to the cry of ‘Charlatan’, and drugs would be seen hurtling through the scuttle. The chaplain suffered more than the rest: most of the officers haunted other parts of the ship when the convalescent Maturin was on the quarterdeck, but Mr White could not climb and in any case his duty required him to visit the sick – even to play chess with them. Once, goaded by a fling about Erastianism, he concentrated all his powers and won: he had to bear not only the reproachful looks of the helmsman, the quartermaster at the con, and the whole gunroom, but a semi-official rebuke from his captain, who thought it ‘a poor shabby thing to set back an invalid’s recovery for the satisfaction of the moment’, and the strokes of his own conscience. Mr White was in a hopeless position, for if he lost, Dr Maturin was quite as likely to cry out that he did not attend, and fly into a passion.

-- from HMS Surprise, chapter eleven

sid

The bell struck; and at the pipe of the bosun's call the hammocks came flying up, close on two hundred of them, to be stowed with lightning rapidity into the nettings, with their numbers all turned the same way; and in the rushing current of seamen Jack stood tall and magnificent in a flowered silk dressing-gown, looking sharply up and down the deck.

Chapter Five
HMS Surprise

sharpiefan

Current Mood: giggly

Jack was of a sanguine temperament; he liked most people and he was surprised when they did not like him. This readiness to be pleased had been damaged of recent years, but it remained intact as far as horses, dogs and sloths were concerned; it wounded him to see tears come into the creature's eyes when he walked into the cabin, and he laid himself out to be agreeable. As they ran down to Rio he sat with it at odd moments, addressing it in Portuguese, more or less, and feeding it with offerings that it sometimes ate, sometimes allowed to drool slowly from its mouth; but it was not until they were approaching Capricorn, with Rio no great distance on the starboard bow, that he found it respond.

The weather had freshened almost to coldness, for the wind was coming more easterly, from the chilly currents between Tristan and the Cape; the sloth was amazed by the change; it shunned the deck and spent its time below. Jack was in his cabin, pricking the chart with less satisfaction than he could have wished: progress, slow, headwinds by night - unaccountable headwinds by night - and sipping a glass of grog; Stephen was in the mizzen-top teaching Bonden to write and scanning the sea for his first albatross. The sloth sneezed and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed on him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. 'Try a piece of this, old cock,' he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. 'It might put a little heart into you.' The sloth sighed, closed its eye, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again.

Some minutes later he felt a touch on his knee: the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog: growing confidence and esteem...

'In this bucket,' said Stephen, walking into the cabin, 'in this small bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London and Paris combined: these animalculae - what is the matter with the sloth?' It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable, bleary face, shook it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep.

Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.'

(HMS Surprise - not sure of the exact chapter as I don't have the book to hand and am copy/pasting from an entry I posted a while back in my own journal. :( )

esteven

' We have laid down the island as exactly my God, what is that monstrous thing?'
'It is a tortoise, my dear. The great land-tortoise of the world: a new genus. He is unknown to science, and in comparison of him, your giants of Rodriguez and Aldabra are inconsiderable reptiles. He must weight a ton. I do not know that I have ever been so happy. I am in such spirits, Jack! How you will ever get him aboard,I cannot tell; but nothing is impossible to the Navy.'
'Must we get him aboard?'
'Oh, no question about it. He is to immortalise your name. This is Testudo aubreii for all eternity; when the I hero of the Nile is forgotten, Captain Aubrey will live on in his tortoise.
There's glory for you.'
'Why, I am much obliged, Stephen, I am sure. I suppose we might parbuckle him down the beach.

(chapter 11)

Testudo aubreii just has to put in an appearance at

where_away

esteven

Jack stood tall and magnificent in a flowered silk dressing-gown, looking sharply up and down the deck

...and if I remember correctly, there cannot have been much underneath in the line of clothing. *g*

(chapter five)

esteven

We have already collected wonderful scenes and quotes here, mainly for our continued pleasure, and partially so that dear

alltoseek does not always have to engage her awesome finding powers. *g*

But what of those quotes that –though short- remind us of long scenes, may even move us to smile or sniffle, and where we know exactly where they are?

Let me give you some examples that you surely know intimately well:

The music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli's C major quartet

'Come, brother,'said Stephen in his ear, very like a dream.'Come below.

Stephen saw them walk into his timeless dream: they had been there before, but never together.

Off Hats

Would you know any more of quotes like these? Please post them here. :D

esteven

'Never,' said Jack. 'Sex has never entered my mind, at any time.'

(chapter eight)

feroxargentea

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esteven

he prized statements of this kind in Jack.

(chapter seven)

esteven

chapter seven

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Aubreyad quotes

Entries tagged with book: 3 (hms surprise)

Chess with invalid!Stephen

Jack's flowered silk dressing gown

One debauched sloth

Testudo Aubreii for all eternity

A flowered silk dressing-gown

Quotes we find instantly

Stephen said, 'Have you ever contemplated upon sex, my dear?'

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That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look:

Take off some of these splendid garments

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