Blue at the Mizzen Quotes

“Go and see whether the Doctor is about,’ said Jack, ‘and if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.’
Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Touch and away, Jack?’ asked Stephen. ‘Touch and away? Do you not recall that I have important business there? Enquiries of the very first interest?’

To do with our enterprise? To do with this voyage?’

Perhaps not quite directly.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“He reflected on his hitherto reflection that soldiers and sailors were, upon the whole, quite different creatures. ‘And perhaps they are, too: yet perhaps drink, in very large quantities, may make the difference less evident.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“It’s all along of the unicorn’s horn – it’s all along of the glorious hand. Huzzay, three times huzzay for the doctor!’

Lord, how they cheered their surgeon! It was he who had brought the narwhal’s tusk aboard: and the severed hand, the Hand of Glory, was his property: both symbolized (and practically guaranteed) immense good fortune, virility, safety from poison or any disease you chose to name: and both had proved their worth.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Tomorrow was another day, at least by the calendar, but the two could hardly be told apart: the heat, the faintly drifting cloud, the ship pitching heavily with no way on her, the flaccid sails, were all the same:”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Almost all voyages, from that of Noah’s Ark to the sending of the ships to Troy, have been marked by interminable delays, with false starts and turning wind and tide; perhaps the schooner Ringle was too slim and slight to count as a worthy adversary, because she gently sailed her anchor out of the ground and then bore away a little east of north with a wind that allowed her to spread every sail she possessed, other than those reserved for foul or very foul weather.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Jack Aubrey pushed back his chair, loosened his waistcoat, and said, 'I had no idea I was so hungry: I am afraid I must have eaten like an ogre.'
Killick could be seen to smile: Jack's appetite always pleased him - his one deviation into amiability.
'Oh come,' said Maturin. 'Six mutton chops is not at all excessive in a man of your weight: an abstemious ogre would call it moderation.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“After a last salute Jack glanced aloft - still the sweet west wind - and then he looked fore and aft: a fine clear deck, hands all at their stations and all beaming with pleasure; and turning to the master he said. 'Mr Hanson, pray lay me a course for Cape Pilar and Magellan's Strait.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“What pleasant days they were – an English summer at its best, and English countryside at its best, enough night-rain in the hills to keep the trout-streams fine and brisk, and there were reports of a hoopoe seen three times at Chiddingfold parsonage.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“in the mean time I take the liberty of sending you this hermaphroditic crab, whose singularity I am sure your keen eye will appreciate,”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Jack,’ said Stephen, ‘a signal has just come in. It has not all been decoded, but the opening is addressed to you by name and ship and if you choose I will read you what has been made out and try to decode the rest as I go – it has been crumpled in the journey and I may miss some words. But here is the essence:
‘Immediately upon receipt of the present order you will proceed to the River Plate, there joining the South African squadron: you will go aboard HMS Implacable, hoisting your flag, blue at the mizzen and take command of the blue squadron.’

Jack sat down, bowing his face in his hands: he was almost unmanned, but after a moment he did say,
‘Read that again, will you, Stephen?”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“I am not what would ordinarily be called a dressy man, as you are aware; but I should not have presented myself here in the utmost degree of squalor . . .'
'No, no ..."
'. . . had it not been a matter of some urgency. Though,' he murmured, looking at his cuff, 'this was quite a good shirt, some years ago.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Please tell the Senhor that I have never eaten better porco in my life,' said Jack, holding up a bare white bone. Jack had a variety of little imbecilities, but none irritated Stephen more than his way of tossing in the odd word or two of a foreign language.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Stephen bowed: but when they had put on formal clothes he said, 'Interpret, is it? As I told you before I do not speak - not as who should say speak - Portuguese. Still less do I understand the language when it is spoke. No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese, without he is a native or brought up to comprehend that strange blurred muffled indistinct utterance from a very early, almost toothless, age. Anyone with a handful of Latin - even Spanish or Catalan - can read it without much difficulty but to comprehend even the drift of the colloquial, the rapidly muttered version. . .”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“Yet a most discreditable scene it was when he opened the larboard door of the bright-lit gunroom. Here were men, accustomed to bloodshed from their childhood, now running about like a parcel of hens, mopping Jacob's arm with their napkins, giving advice, proffering glasses of water, wine, brandy, loosening his neckcloth, undoing his breeches at the waist and the knee. The purser was literally wringing his hands.
'Pass the word for Poll Skeeping,' cried Stephen in a harsh peremptory tone. He thrust them aside irrespective of rank, whipped out a lancet (always in a side-pocket), slit Jacob's sleeve up to the shoulder, cut the shirt away, uncovered the spurting brachial artery and two other ample sources of blood on the same limb.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen