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I have, however, to lament the loss of Lieutenant Dillon, who fell at the height of the action, leading his boarding-party, and of Mr Ellis, a supernumerary; while Mr Watt the boatswain and five seamen were severely wounded.
black faces behind him. I saw him pistol a man with a pike, pass his sword through a fellow who had beaten down the bosun and come to a redcoat, an officer. After a couple of quick passes he caught this man’s sword on his pistol and lunged straight into him. But his sword struck on the breast-bone or a metal plate, and doubled and broke with the thrust: and with the six inches left he stabbed him faster than you could see – inconceivable force and rapidity. You would never believe the happiness on his face. The light on his face!’
Reminds me of the warp spasm
The great exertions and good conduct of Mr Pullings, a passed midshipman and acting lieutenant whom I beg to recommend to their Lordships’ attention, and of the boatswain, carpenter, gunner and petty officers, I am particularly indebted for.
Sophie’s force at commencement of action: 54 officers, men, and boys. 14 4-pounders. 3 killed and 8 wounded. Cacafuego’s force at commencement of action: 274 officers, seamen and supernumeraries. 45 marines. Guns 32. The captain, boatswain, and 13 men killed; 41 wounded.
had done all the justice he could, at least, for Stephen Maturin had insisted upon being left out.
Interesting that SM does not want in the letter. He is naturally shy and withdrawn from spotlight, but also a hint at his secret work
For example, it spoke of the engagement as something isolated in time, coolly observed, reasonably fought and clearly remembered, whereas almost everything of real importance was before or after the blaze of fighting; and even in that he could scarcely tell what came first.
A typical initial PTSD response
The sound that woke him in the middle watch: a low cry mounting by quarter tones or less and increasing in volume to a howling shriek, then a quick series of spoken or chanted words, the mounting cry again and the shriek – the Irish men of the crew waking James Dillon, stretched there with a cross in his hands and lanterns at his head and his feet.
That child Ellis in his hammock with the flag sewed over him looked like a little pudding, and now at the recollection his eye clouded again. He had wept, wept, his face streaming with tears as the bodies went over the side and the marines fired their volley. ‘Dear Lord,’ he thought. ‘Dear Lord.’ For the re-writing of the letter and this casting back of his mind brought all the sadness flooding up again. It was a sadness that had lasted from the end of the action until the breeze had died on them some miles off Cape Mola and they had fired urgent guns for a pilot and assistance:
The Blue Devils follow Jack after battle. Kinda a cacathymic reaction. Mental processes under the control of emotion
Sennet of the Bellerophon, whose gig was the first boat to reach him: then there was Butler of the Naiad
Real ships, fake Captains
and mixed in his sorrow for Dillon there was a guilt whose cause and nature eluded him;
unless he blew himself as high as the Boyne, the next thing that would reach him from the Admiralty would be the news of his being gazetted – of his being made a post-captain.
Ship of vice-Admiral Jervis caught fire and exploded. All the ships around it saved all but 11. Guns cooked off killing some of the rescuers.
Compare with ‘Dart’ action per Dillon and the reluctance of the men to approach the burning ship.
Not much right to a frigate. Not much right to set about the Cacafuego, either; nor to make love to Molly Harte. Yet he had done so. In the post-chaise, in a bower, in another bower, all night long.
The driver in a post chaise, the driver rides one,of the horses, not on the cabin. Ideal for sexual encounters.
Called ‘post chaise’ as the horse teams were swapped out at ‘Posts’
Perhaps that was why he was so sleepy now, so apt to doze, blinking comfortably into the future as though it were a sea-coal fire.
A beautiful sentence
He carried his letter into the commandant’s office, and the compunction, the stirrings if not of conscience or principle then at least of decency, that had disturbed him on his way up through the town and even more in the anteroom, disappeared with Captain Harte’s first words.
He is a bit guilty. Maybe shouldn’t tup his boss’s wife so often.
‘If Mr Brown can tell me how to take a thirty-two gun frigate without having a few spars knocked away I shall be obliged to him.’
‘Have you written to Ellis’ people yet? This sort of thing’ – tapping the public letter – ‘is easy enough: anyone can do this. But I do not envy you the other. What I shall say myself I don’t know…’ Biting the joint of his thumb he darted a furious look from under his eyebrows, and Jack had a moral certainty that the financial setback, misfortune, disaster, or whatever it was, affected him far more than the debauching of his wife.
Jesus, but Harte is a suppurating arsehole. Well done Jackie.
‘Captain Aubrey, I do believe? Keats, of the Superb. My dear sir, you must allow me to congratulate you with all my heart – a most splendid victory indeed. I have just pulled round your capture in my barge, and I am amazed, sir, amazed.
Capt. Keats of the Superb. 100% accurate. He was in Mahon in 01
‘I am infinitely obliged to you, for your kind opinion. There is none I value more, sir. To tell you the truth, I am engaged to dine with the Governor and to stay for the concert; but if I might beg the loan of your bosun and a small party – my people are all most uncommon weary, quite fagged out – why, I should look upon it as a most welcome, indeed, a Heaven-sent relief.’
‘Then our ways lie together,’ said Captain Keats, taking Jack’s arm; and as they crossed the street to walk in the shade he called out to a friend,
Men usually walked around arm-in-arm or with an arm around each other around this time
‘This gives me very great pleasure,’ cried the grim, battle-scarred Grenville, breaking out into a one-eyed smile: he shook Jack by the hand and instantly asked him to dinner.
16th century Grenville?
Foreign secretary in 1801?
Just a resonant, contemporaneous name - and I love this throwaway character.
He walked in, up the stairs to his room, threw off his coat and sat down. ‘This must be what they call the vapours,’ he said, trying to define something happy, tremulous, poignant, churchlike and not far from tears in his heart and bosom.
JA is really affected by praise, as he so often alone in command. He wants the world to be a positive thing.
a kind and brotherly look.
‘Thank you, thank you, Mercy dear; I am infinitely obliged to you. Tell me,’ he said, after a decent pause, trying to shift to an easier position (a plump girl: a good ten stone), ‘diga me, would you be a good creature, bona creatura, and fetch me some iced negus? Sangria colda? Thirst, soif, very thirst, I do assure you, my dear.’
‘Your auntie was quite right,’ he said, putting down the beaded jug and wiping his mouth. ‘The Vinaroz ship was there to the minute, and we found the false Ragusan. So here, acqui, aqui is auntie’s reward, the recompenso de tua tia, my dear’ – pulling a leather purse out of his breeches pocket – ‘y aqui’ – bringing out a neat sealing-waxed packet – ‘is a little regalo para vous, sweetheart.’
We see Mercedes again…
She shrieked, kissed him, darted to the looking-glass, shrieked some more – eek, eek! – and came back with the stone flashing low on her neck. She pulled herself in below and puffed herself out above, like a pouter-pigeon, and lowered her bosom, the diamonds winking in the hollow, down towards him, saying, ‘You like him? You like him? You like him?’ Jack’s eyes grew less brotherly, oh far less brotherly, his glottis stiffened and his heart began to thump. ‘Oh, yes, I like him,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘Timely, sir, bosun of the Superb,’ said a tremendous voice at the opening door. ‘Oh, beg pardon,
...more
Sure…his glottis is stiff. How many people went to check what a glottis is
Also love the name of Timely
was now on his way to the Governor’s dinner. That, at least, was his intention; but a bemused state of mind, swimming back into the past and onwards into the future, together with a reluctance to seem to parade himself in what the sailors called the High Street, brought him by obscure back ways filled with the smell of new fermenting wine and purple-guttered with the lees, to the Franciscan church at the top of the hill.
passed the green door of Mr Florey’s house with a quick upward glance and headed north-west by north for the Residence. Behind the green door and some floors up Stephen and Mr Florey were already sat down to a haphazard meal,
POB can link between scenes with the cool calm of a 1980’s continuity announcer
You began your incision at the Hippocratic point, I see,’ he said, raising the sheet a little more, and gazing at the young lady beneath it. ‘Perhaps we ought to wash it,’ said Mr Florey. ‘Oh, a wipe will do,’ said Stephen, using a corner of the sheet. ‘By the way, what was the cause of death?’ he asked, letting the cloth fall back.
These amiable weaknesses, follies … Yes. Your friend’s advancement.’
‘Very true,’ said Stephen, tossing the vulture a piece of gristle. ‘In general fenum habent in cornu. But surely,’ he said, smiling at Mr Florey, ‘you are not throwing out a generality about cuckolds? Do not you choose to be more specific? Or do you perhaps refer to the young person under the sheet? I know you speak from your excellent heart, and I assure you no degree of frankness can possibly offend.’
Harte is the vulture, and JA’s conduct gives Harte the meat
Fenum habent in cornu - Horace Satires 1
The hay was used on oxen inclined to gore as a padding and danger sign. Habet (singular) means ‘he’s a dangerous man’. SM uses this pun to imply that the dangerous man will gore as he has been given horns. (Harte)
‘there are times when it seems to me that nothing short of a radical ablation of the membrum virile would answer, in this case.’ ‘That is very generally the peccant part,’ said Mr Florey.
Membrum virile -penis
Peccant - offending or causing sin - ALSO means diseased, which we shall see what comes of shagging Molly Harte
My love, in Welsh
Captain A would clear a neat five thou’
‘I know what you are thinking, Mr W.,’ cried his wife, ‘and you are to stop it this minute. The nasty cat; the wretch.’
Difference in attitude between sexually promiscuous men and women
Yardo - a stud bull with a huge penis.
The easy score against women here is uncomfortable. The inherent bitchiness and near-complete description of women as a negative influence is problematic.
I would say that this is rectified in Post Captain, and it really is, but he didn’t know he would write that when writing this, by all accounts. I am grateful that he becomes a more holistic and caring writer towards women.
She and Lady Warren arrived together for the concert,
The music room at the governors house in Port Mahon….
She was something of a whore, thought Jack, looking at her with great approval as she stood there with her head high, perfectly aware of what the women were saying, and defying them:
Jack saw Stephen, powdered, respectable apart from having forgotten his shirt, and eager for the treat.
‘Some Boccherini – a ’cello piece – and the Haydn trio that we arranged. And Mrs Harte is going to play the harp. Come and sit by me.’
‘It is a wound, if you wish,’ said Stephen. ‘But not from our battle with the Cacafuego. Some lady of your acquaintance has been too liberal with her favours, too universally kind.’
Ever since Stephen Maturin had grown rich with their first prize he had constantly laid in great quantities of asafetida, castoreum and other substances, to make his medicines more revolting in taste, smell and texture than any others in the fleet; and he found it answered – his hardy patients knew with their entire beings that they were being physicked.
Stinking ingredients that help deal with pox and also make you feel like you’ve had medicine
Asafoetida - hing in Hindi
Castoreum - beaver anal gland secretion
Mr Dalziel respectfully. Mr Dalziel was one of the disappointments of Malta:
Pronounced as Dee-el - not Del-zeal
From a Celtic Scots name
He had softened it with a private note promising to ‘keep Mr Pullings in mind and to make particular mention of him to the Admiralty’,
Mr Dalziel felt it, and he was particularly conciliatory; though, indeed, he had very little need to be, for Pullings was the most unassuming creature on earth, painfully diffident anywhere except on the enemy’s deck.
Sword, pistol and pike wounds; and probing the deepest I have found a piece of metal, a slug, that he had received at the Battle of the Nile.’
Jacks endless injuries are a source of fascination for people who do not Jack.
It was just as well, for their new lieutenant was no great seaman, and they got him out of many a sad blunder as the sloop made her way westwards as fast as ever she could,
But I see you have hooks to the yards and stays already – very good,’ he added with a chuckle, going into his cabin. This was the first poor Mr Dalziel had heard of it:
They loved him much, would follow him anywhere; but they were pleasantly amused at the thought of his copping it, his being dressed down, hauled over the coals, taken to task a little.
all bloody lies.
This is unbelievably shocking treatment by Harte.
In fact, their treatment was even shabbier than rumour had it.
