where_away | Entries tagged with character: jack

In chapter one, Jack and Stephen:

And privately to Stephen he said, 'I repeated your "No penetration, no sodomy", which floored one and all; though I must say that most of them were glad to be floored. I persuaded the others to find no more than gross indecency.'

'And is being towed ashore on a grating the set penalty for gross indecency?'

'No. We call it the use and custom of the sea: that is the way it has always been.'

feroxargentea

"Boarding pikes and cutlasses have been served out, I am sure? [...] I do not think any truce is possible and you would be killed at once. In an encounter like this one side or the other has to be beaten entirely."
"Sure, you are in the right of it."
Killick put a tray on the earthwork and they sat either side of it, looking over the slip and the busy Dyaks below.
"How is the bosun?" asked Jack, putting down his cup.
"We have sewn him up," said Stephen, "and unless there is infection he will do; but he will never dance again. One of his wounds was a severed hamstring."

The Nutmeg of Consolation, chapter 2.

They already had a game of cricket (in the previous chapter), so here they have to content themselves with DRINKING A CUP OF CALMING TEA while the enemy hacks off their captives' heads on the beach below.
English people being English. It's beautiful.

p.s. Yes, technically it might be coffee. I'm going to believe it's tea, okay? :)

feroxargentea

"Another misery of human life," remarked Stephen to the morning darkness, "is having a contubernal that snores like ten."
"I was not snoring," said Jack. "I was wide awake. What is a contubernal?"
"You are a contubernal."
"And you are another."

Stephen & Jack, The Nutmeg of Consolation Ch 2

Aiii, these guys, they are so cute. Sure, there are other fandoms, other OTPs, but none so sweet and funny and downright thesaurusy as these two.

(Also I am way behind with the Read, sorry. Trying to catch up, & posting this here to remind me.)

alcyone301

Yet when he woke in the morning he knew that the ship was in a different world, that she was herself a different world. True, clean, breathable air was gushing down the wind-sail; his whole being was recharged with life.

These confused waking motions were confirmed on deck. The Leopard had sent up her topgallantmasts – it had taken the reduced crew three-quarters of an hour instead of the usual seventeen minutes and forty seconds – and she was running west-south-west at five or six knots under a cloud of sail. A new and brilliant day, a new and healthy sea, transparent tonic air, the ship alive.
Killick had been on the watch, and now he ran forward with coffee-pot and biscuit, laid them carefully in a coil of rope at the appointed place, the limit of the forbidden ground, retreated, and called out, ‘Good morning, sir. This is what we have been praying for.’ Stephen nodded, took a draught, and asked how the Captain did. ‘Which he’s just turned in,’ said Killick, ‘a-laughing like a boy. Says we’ve cleared the doldrums: the true blessed trade, he says, and never will he touch a stitch till we’re at the Cape.’

-- DI ch. 5

alcyone301

[Jack] said to Plaice, ‘Well, 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?’

- FSotW, ch. 5

alcyone301

For many years they had played chess, with fairly even fortunes; but they played with such intensity, being extremely unwilling to lose, that in time it came to resemble hard labour rather than amusement; and they being unusually close friends remorse for beating the other sometimes outweighed the triumph of winning. They had also played countless games of piquet, but in this case luck ran so steadily in Stephen’s direction, good cards and sequences flocked to him in such numbers, that it became dull; and they had fixed upon backgammon as a game in which the mere throw of the dice played so large a part that it was not shameful to lose, but in which there was still enough skill for pleasure in victory.

- from Clarissa Oakes, chapter four

alcyone301

Current Music: Le nozze di Figaro, A2

'Dear Queeney. I thought she was to be an old maid, though she was so pretty; for how could any man make up to a girl that knows Hebrew? It seemed a sad pity: anyone so sweet-tempered should have a prodigious great family of children. But, however, here she is married to the admiral, so it all ends happy … yet, you know, he is amazingly ancient – grey-haired, rising sixty, I dare say. Do you think, as a physician – I mean, is it possible …?’

‘Possibilissima.’

‘Eh?’

‘Possible è la cosa, e naturale,’ sang Stephen in a harsh, creaking tone, quite unlike his speaking voice, which was not disagreeable. ‘E se Susanna vuol, possibilissima,’ discordantly, but near enough to Figaro to be recognized.

‘Really? Really?’ said Jack with intense interest.

- from Master and Commander, chapter four

alltoseek

Desolation Island, Chapter 1:

'Alas, Jack. What I have is all bespoke, locked up in Spain. Indeed, I am so short in England that it is my intention to beg you to lend me, let us see - 'consulting a paper, 'seven hundred and eighty pounds.'

'Thank you,' he said, when Jack came back with a draft on his banker. 'I am obliged to you, Jack.'

'I beg you will not speak nor think of obligation,' said Jack. 'Between you and me, it would be precious strange to speak of obligation.

alltoseek

'You and Martin may say what you like,' said Jack, but there are two ends to every pudding.'

'I should be the last to deny it,' said Stephen. 'If a pudding starts, clearly it must end; the human mind is incapable of grasping infinity, and an endless pudding passes our conception.'

The Ionian Mission, Chapter 4 (near the end)

feroxargentea

With Stephen it was entirely different. Jack loved him, and had not the least objection to granting him all the erudition in the world, while remaining inwardly convinced that in all practical matters other than physic and surgery Stephen should never be allowed out alone.

The Mauritius Command, chapter 2.

(posting this here so I can find it again!)

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

esteven

This short watch that is about to come, or rather these two short watches -why are they called dog watches? Where, heu, heu, is the canine connection?"
'Why,' said Stephen, 'it is because they are curtailed, of course.'
A total blank. Stephen gave a faint inward sigh; but he was used to this.

:)

Post Captain
Chapter Twelve

esteven

'Brother, how tedious you can be, on occasion. I did hear some cries of "Jolly rogers - jolly rogers - we shall roger them." But in parenthesis, Jack, tell me about this word roger. I have often heard it aboard, but can make out no clear nautical signification.'
'Oh, it is no sea-term. They use it ashore much more than we do - a low cant expression meaning to swive or couple with.'
Stephen considered for a moment and then said, 'So roger joins bugger and that even coarser word; and they are all used in defiance and contempt, as though to an enemy; which seems to show a curious light on the lover's subjacent emotions. Conquest, rape, subjugation: have women a private language of the same nature, I wonder?"
Jack said, 'In some parts of the West Country rams are called Roger, as cats are called Puss; and of course that is their duty; though which came first, the deed or the doer, the goose or the egg, I am not learned enough to tell.'
'Would it not be the owl, at all?'
'Never in life, my poor Stephen. Who ever heard of a golden owl?

Why is it the duty of the rams to be called Roger, and of cats to be called Puss?

esteven

You ease my mind: but tell me, Jack - for I see that in spite of a
sleepless night you are eager to be up and about, inspecting booms, gunwales, lifts...Pray tell me when you are inclined to sit down quietly and talk about the less physical aspects of our affair.'
Jack looked at him thoughtfully, revolving the less physical aspects...
(chapter 6)

esteven

Here is one quote I am trying to find. Maybe someone can help? It is from someone's default icon. Unfortunately she does not know from which book it is:

and the soared up and away, up, joining, separating, twisting, the one answering the other, rising into their native air

I vaguely remember it but really do not wish to wait for the new read to discover it again.

Anyone?

ETA: Thanks to

heather_mist and

feroxargentea here is the wonderfully complete excerpt:

'Where did you get this?' he asked.
'I picked it up in a pawnshop near the Sally-Port. It cost twelve and six.'
'You were not cheated, my dear. I like its tone extremely warm, mellow. You are a great judge of a fiddle, to be sure. Come, come, there is not a moment to lose; I make my rounds at seven bells. One, two, three,' he cried, tapping his foot, and the cabin was filled with the opening movement of Boccherini's Corelli sonata, a glorious texture of sound, the violin sending up brilliant jets through the 'cello's involutions, and they soared up and away from the grind of pumps, the tireless barking, the problems of command, up, the one answering the other, joining, separating, twining, rising into their native air.
(chapter 7)

sharpiefan

Current Mood: geeky

"Good morning, Oakes," he said to the Marine sentry at his door, and "Good morning, gentlemen," as he stepped onto the quarterdeck. In the general chorus of "Good morning, sir," hats flew off and immediately afterwards a dozen waistcoats partly vanished under close-buttoned coats.

And:

The Marines were already drawn up far aft, near the taffrail. The midshipmen inspected the hands in their divisions, tried to make them stand up straight and soldierly and stop talking and then reported to the lieutenants and the master; the lieutenants and the master inspected them again, tried to make them stop staring about and hitching up their trousers and reported that the men were 'present, properly dressed and clean' to Mowett, who stepped across the deck to Captain Aubrey, took off his hat and said, "All the officers have reported, sir."

"Then we will go round the ship, Mr Mowett," said Jack and turned aft, to where the Marines were standing as straight as ramrods in their scarlet coats: their cross-belts were brilliant with pipeclay, their muskets and sidearms shone again, their hair was powdered to a turn, their leather stocks were as tight as stocks could well be and allow a little circulation of the blood; and although awnings had been rigged, the eastern sun, not yet as its height, beat on their backs with shocking force. They might not be beautiful, but they were certainly suffering. Accompanied by Howard, his sword drawn, and by Mowett, he passed along the rows of faces, many of them nameless to him even now and all of them impersonal, gazing out beyond him, wholly without expression.

"Very creditable, Mr Howard," said Jack. "I believe you may dismiss your men now. They may put on their duck jackets and wait quietly under the forecastle until church."

And:

When the barge was a little nearer he said to the Marine sentry, "Trollope, hail that boat."

The Marine was on the point of saying, "But it's our own barge, sir," when a glazed, disciplined look came over his face: he shut his mouth, drew a deep breath and called, "The boat ahoy."

All (unless I mistake myself) from Chapter Nine of The Far Side of the World

esteven

...If I did not continually check him, he would have a mutiny on his hands, a very ugly mutiny indeed.'
Jack paused, absently cut Stephen another slice of pineapple, and passed it over.
Stephen acknowledged it with a bob of his head but said nothing. It was very unusual for Jack to speak in this way: the flow was not to be interrupted.

(chapter nine)

:D

esteven

'I should like that of all things. And yet, brother, in spite of this striking success, you look sad and worn and anxious. I do not wish to force the least confidence and if my words are as indiscreet as I fear they may be I shall not resent a civil evasion. But your violin, which has sustained me all these weeks from the stern-gallery, speaks pianpianissimo and always in D minor. Has the poor ship a hidden leak that cannot be come at? Must she perish?'
Jack gazed at him for a long considering moment and said, 'Sad: yes, I have never liked leading from behind...

(chapter nine)

Why, oh why do I always melt into a delighted puddle when I read scenes like this?

esteven

Shall we finish the port?'
'Gule, or gluttony, is a beastish sin,' said Stephen. 'But without sin there can be no forgiveness. Would there be any of the Gibraltar walnuts left, at all?'
'If Killick has not blown out his kite with them, there should be plenty in this locker. Yes. Half a sack. Forgiveness,' he said thoughtfully, cracking six together in his massive hand.

(chapter five)

I am certain Jack is cracking some of these walnuts for Stephen. :D

esteven

They most delighted in the Halleluiah Chorus, and often, when Jack walked forward to lend his powerful bass, they would go through it twice, so that the deck vibrated again and he sang away in the midst of that great volume of true ordered sound, his heart lifted high.
But most of his musical pleasure was on a less heroic scale, and he took it much farther aft, in his great cabin with Stephen, the 'cello singing deep in its conversation with the violin, sometimes plain and direct, sometimes immensely intricate, but always profoundly satisfying in the Scarlatti, Hummel and Cherubini that they knew very well, more tentative and still exploratory as they felt their way far into the manuscript pieces that Jack had bought from London Bach's young man.
'I beg pardon,' said Stephen, as a lee-lurch made him slur his C sharp into a quarter-tone lower than a lugubrious B. They played on to the end of the coda, and after the moment's triumphant silence, the tension dying, he laid his bow on the table, his 'cello on a locker, and observed, 'I am afraid I played worse than usual, with the floor bounding about in this irregular, uneasy fashion. It is my belief we have turned round, and are now facing the billows.'
'Perhaps we have,' said Jack.

(chapter 5)

Since Jack and Stephen love making music together, I can never get enough of those scenes where they delight in tha activity. How I would love to hear Jack in the chorus. :D

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Entries tagged with character: jack

"No penetration, no sodomy"

Cup of tea?

Contubernals

a different world

Jack is like Shakespeare

Chess and Cards

Queeney's marriage; Stephen's voice

To Speak of Obligation

On the Impossiblity of Endless Puddings

All the Erudition in the World

Jack's flowered silk dressing gown

Cur-tailed Dog Watches

Ram and Puss

Less physical aspects

joining, separating, twining, rising into their native air

Jack and the Marines

Slicing Pineapples for Stephen

pianpianissimo

Cracking Walnuts

Halleluiah Chorus and musical pleasure on a less heroic scale

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