Master and Commander (Aubrey & Maturin, #1)

by Patrick O'Brian

This degree of apprehension in Captain Ferris seemed to Jack a kind of wound, the result of lying hard aground under the fire of three shore-batteries,

Shellshock

‘In his case, yes,’ said Jack. ‘His anxiety is unfounded – a sort of waking nightmare, I take it.’

a sterile wrangling about what ought to have been done.

he unbuckled his sword, made an ungainly parcel of it and sent it down to the Admiral’s secretary with a note. Then he went for a walk, feeling strangely naked and unwilling to be seen.

Jack, almost for the first time in his life, was by no means sure of his perfect comprehension, natural intelligence and penetration.

Stephen had no notion of any parole that would keep him out of the naval hospital: the squadron had had more than two hundred men wounded, and he spent almost all his time there.

You are an obese subject; your hams quiver as you go. You must weigh sixteen or even seventeen stone.’

An ape on a rock no great way off threw a turd at him, quite unprovoked; and when he half rose in protest it shook its wizened fist and gibbered so furiously that he sank down again, so low were his spirits.

A macaque, not an ape, it they do love to throw turds

‘There’s the Superb. And the Thames. Then two Spanish three-deckers – one’s the Real Carlos, I am almost sure: vice-admiral’s flagship, in any event. Two seventy-fours. No, a seventy-four and probably an eighty-gun ship.’ ‘Argonauta,’ said one of the masons. ‘Another three-decker. And three frigates, two French.’

A huge Franco-Spanish fleet

It was a most formidable squadron – four hundred and seventy-four great guns, without counting the hundred odd of the frigates – and the ships were surprisingly well handled.

when he was a midshipman it would never in a thousand years have occurred to him to speak to his captain, far less bring him cakes; and if it had occurred to him he would never have done so, for fear of his life.

that only gives us five of the line against ten, or nine if you leave the Hannibal out – three hundred and seventy-six guns to their seven hundred odd,

‘You would go for them, would not you, sir?’ said Babbington; and both the midshipmen laughed very cheerfully.

Mowett said, ‘As when enclosing harpooners assail, In hyperborean seas the slumbering whale.

From a poem by Falconer - The harpooners win against the big whale

Captain Keats of the Superb,

Last chapter we met Keats

‘It is very kind of you indeed, sir; most grateful, but I believe I must beg to be excused. I had the misfortune to lose the Sophie, and I dare say you will be sitting on me presently, together with most of the other post-captains.’

‘Who was that ill-looking son of a bitch in the black coat?’ asked Jack, as another friend, Heneage Dundas of the Calpe, came down the steps.

The words of the tenth Article of War came quite unbidden into his mind: If any person in the fleet shall cowardly yield or cry for quarter, being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court-martial, shall suffer death.

Come cheer up my lads, ’tis to glory we steer as loud as ever they could go, while the Caesar’s marines answered with Britons strike home.

weigh and prepare for battle.

The execution of this was perhaps the most beautiful naval manoeuvre Jack had ever seen:

‘I would not have missed it for a hundred pounds: that damned fellow in Ward B and his untimely fancies – a fine time to cut one’s throat, good lack a-day.’

‘Very well,’ said Stephen, after a moment’s thought. ‘I can leave a note. And we will fill our pockets with ham: then we shall have none of your wry looks and short answers.’

‘She’s the Superb; she does so to keep her station and not over-run the Admiral, for she is a superb sailer, you know, the best in the fleet. Did you hear that?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘It was rather clever, I thought – witty.’

Oh Jackie…

‘How she flies,’ said Jack, lowering his glass and wiping it: but the dimness was neither his tears nor any dirt on the glass – it was the fading of the day.

‘They tell me I am to be tried for the loss of the Sophie.’

You have nothing to worry about, I do assure you, upon my word and honour. Nothing at all.’ ‘Oh, I shall plead guilty at once,’ said Stephen. ‘And I shall add that I was sitting in the powder-magazine with a naked light at the time, imagining the death of the King, wasting my medical stores, smoking tobacco and making a fraudulent return of the portable soup. What solemn nonsense it is’ – laughing heartily – ‘I am surprised so sensible a man as you should attribute any importance to the matter.’

Stephen reassuring Jack Naked lights in magazines come back - FoW

‘Oh, I do not mind it,’ cried Jack. ‘How you lie,’ said Stephen affectionately, but within his own bosom.

I have heard you say some tolerably severe things about admirals, and great men in general.’ ‘Why, to be sure, something sad seems to happen to your great men and your admirals, with age, pretty often: even to your post-captains. A kind of atrophy, a withering-away of the head and the heart. I conceive it may arise from…’

‘how would you like to place your life, your profession and your good name between the hands of a parcel of senior officers?’

for away on the horizon towards Tangiers there was a flash flash-flash, not unlike the repeated dart of lightning.

They could distinctly make out two sources, between twenty and twenty-five miles away, scarcely any distance apart – not above a degree: then three: then a fourth and fifth, and then a growing redness that did not move. ‘There is a ship on fire,’ said Jack in horror,

‘I hope to God it is not one of ours. I hope to God they drown the magazines.’ An enormous flash lit the sky, dazzled them, put out the stars; and nearly two minutes later the vast solemn long rumbling boom of explosion reached them, prolonged by its own echo off the African shore.

‘The ship blew up,’ said Jack: his mind was filled with the Battle of the Nile and the long moment when L’Orient exploded, all brought back to him with extraordinary vividness – a hundred details he thought forgotten, some very hideous.

a second explosion shattered the darkness, perhaps even greater than the first. After this, nothing. Not the remotest light, not a gunflash. The wind increased steadily,...

Dawn found them under their rock, with Jack steadily sweeping the Gut – calm now, and deserted – and Stephen Maturin fast asleep, smiling.

In his journeys up and down he came to know every wind in the path, and the rock against which he leaned was as familiar as an old coat.

‘Calpe’s coming in, sir,’ and blundered on, with the little dog running round and round them, very nearly bringing them down, and barking with delight.

Heneage Dundas of the fast-sailing sloop Calpe was an amiable young man, much caressed by those who knew him for his shining parts and particularly for his skill in the mathematics; but never before had he been the best-loved man in Gibraltar.

‘Victory! Come out at once and drink to a victory! Give you joy of a famous victory, old cock,’ he cried, shaking him terribly by the hand. ‘Such a magnificent fight.’

‘Come on. I have a thirst like Achilles, no, Andromache. It is Keats has the glory of the day – Keats has borne the bell away. Ha, ha, ha! That was a famous line, was it not?

Achilles had a hunger to eat Hector’s heart. Andromache was Hector’s wife in the Iliad. Bear the bell away - winning jockeys used to win a small bell.

That noble fellow Keats – you remember how we saw him shoot ahead? – came up with their rear, the two Spanish first-rates, just before midnight. He chose his moment, clapped his helm a lee and dashed between ’em firing both broadsides – a seventy-four taking on two first-rates!

He shot straight on, leaving his smoke-cloud between ’em as thick as peasoup; and each, firing into it, hit the other; and so the Real Carlos and the Hermenegildo went for each other like fury in the dark. Someone, the Superb or the Hermenegildo, had knocked away the Real Carlos’ fore-topmast, and it was her topsail that fell over the guns and took fire. And after a while the Real Carlos fell on board the Hermenegildo and fired her too. Those were the two explosions we saw, of course.

do you see, Superb was firing three broadsides to her two, and pointing ’em straight.

The flag broke out aboard the Pompée; the gun boomed; the captains assembled for the court-martial.

each post-captain put away his gaiety and came up the side as solemn as a judge, to be greeted with all due ceremony and led into the great cabin by the first lieutenant.

there was a chaplain, a hunted-looking man who paced up and down, sometimes making private ejaculations and dashing his hands together.

for if half the general report of his conduct was true there was no hope for him at all.

After a while Babbington and Ricketts took to changing all the words they could into obscenities, secretly in a corner, while Mowett wrote and scratched out on the back of his, counting syllables on his fingers and silently mouthing. Lucock stared straight ahead of him into vacancy. Stephen intently watched the busy unsatisfied questing of a shining dark-red rat-flea on the chequered sailcloth floor.

it was like a larger version of the Desaix’s stateroom (how glad he was the Desaix was safe) and it, too, was singularly beautiful and full of light – the same range of curved stern-windows, the same inward-leaning side-walls (the ship’s tumblehome, in fact) and the same close, massive white-painted beams overhead in extraordinarily long pure curves right across from one side to another: