Film and Book Connections

Books quoted from or information sourced from:

FILM (by DVD scenes)

BOOKS

2. HMS Surprise

Opening scenes - the two guns "Jumping Billy" and "Sudden Death"

Letter of Marque

Ch 1

The present Surprise, though shorn of her HMS, nevertheless carried all her old guns, Wilful Murder, Jumping Billy, Belcher, Sudden Death, Tom Cribb and the rest...

3. A Shape in the Fog

Jack comes on deck to question Hollom and Calamy as the ship beats to quarters.

Jack: "Where away?"

Hollom: "Two points on the starboard bow, sir."

Treason's Harbour

Ch 6

'Where away?' asked Jack.

'Two points on the starboard bow, sir,' said Mowett.

In these few moments the sun had burnt off the vapours of the night and there she was, a good deal farther off and farther ahead than he had expected from the sound, but as plain as heart could desire.

4. Under Attack

Jack: "Note for the log, Mr Watt. Engaged enemy frigate at six bells."

Master & Commander

Ch 4

'Note down the time, Mr Richards,' said Jack to the pale clerk - the nature of his pallor had changed and his eyes were starting from his head.

6. The Butcher's Bill

Jack: "What's the butcher's bill?"

Letter of Marque

Ch 7 (after the cutting out of the Diane)

'What was the butcher's bill?' he asked.

(also appears in one form or another in several other books, including Master and Commander)

7. Aubrey's Plan

Jack: "The Surprise is not old. No one would call her old. She has a bluff bow, lovely lines, she is a fine sea-boat, weatherly, stiff and fast. Very fast, if she's well handled."

HMS Surprise

Ch 4

'Surprise!' cried Jack again. 'I have not set foot in her since I was a midshipman.' He saw her plain, lying there a cable's length from him in the brilliant sunshine of English Harbour, a trim, beautiful little eight-and-twenty, French-built with a bluff bow and lovely lines, weatherly, stiff, a fine sea-boat, fast when she was well-handled, roomy, dry. . .

8. No Braver Patient

Mowett showing Calamy Jack's carved initials on the mastcap.

HMS Surprise

Ch 8

'Aye? Well, damn them for a pack of greasy hounds. Let me show you my relic. I preserved it south of Madagascar, and I preserved it in Bombay. You will have to stand up. Steady, now - clap on to the cheek-bolt. There!' He pointed to the cap, a dark, worn, rope-scored, massive block of wood that embraced the two masts. 'We cut it out of greenheart in a creek on the Spanish main: it is good for another twenty years. And here, do you see, is my relic.' On the broad rim of the square hole that sat on the topmast head there were the initials JA cut deep and clear, supported on either side by blowsy forms that might have been manatees, though mermaids were more likely - beer-drinking mermaids.

Trepanning surgery on Joe Plaice

The Far Side of the World

Ch 5

Slade: "He's a physician, he is. Ain't one of your common surgeons."

Desolation Island

Ch 4

For it was just as much part of the natural order of things that Dr Maturin should preserve those who came under his hands: he was a physician, not one of your common surgeons - had cured Prince Billy of the marthambles, the larynx, the strong fives - had wormed Admiral Keith and had clapped a stopper over his gout - would not look at you under a guinea, five guineas, ten guineas, a head, by land.

Stephen, after removing Blakeney's arm: "I have never seen a braver patient."

Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove

Ch 5

Reade lay there, inert now, pale, running with sweat. 'There now, my dear, the worst is over," said Stephen in his ear. 'I have not seen a braver patient.'

9. Duet

Killick is seen toasting cheese in an elegant silver piece for Jack and Stephen as they tune their instruments.

Nutmeg of Consolation

Ch 7

'What an elegant toasted-cheese dish. Have I seen it before?'

'No. This is the first time it has been out of its box. I had ordered it from the man in Dublin you recommended, and I picked it up when we were last at the cottage. Then I forgot all about it.'

Stephen lifted the lid and there were six several dishes, sizzling gently over a spirit-lamp under the outer shell, the whole gleaming from Killick's devoted hand. He turned it this way and that, admiring the workmanship

Killick: 'Scrape, scrape, screech, screech. Never a tune you could dance to, not even if you were as drunk as Davy's sow.'

Nutmeg of Consolation

Ch 5

They tuned, and at no great distance Killick said to his mate, 'There they are, at it again. Squeak, squeak; boom, boom. And when they do start a-playing, it's no better. You can't tell t'other from one. Never nothing a man could sing to, even as drunk as Davy's sow.'

10. The Ship of the Future

The girl with the green umbrella

Treason's Harbour

Ch 6

Stephen never has minded the heat, however excessive; but how Mr Martin supports it, even with his green umbrella, I cannot say.

Nagel and Warley show Jack the ship model and Warley says he saw her being built in Boston 'during the war'.

The Far Side of the World

Ch 3

When [Jack] was a prisoner in Boston he had seen her as well as several other American men-of-war, and although the Norfolk could scarcely be compared with frigates like the President or the United States with their twenty-four-pounders and their line-of-battleship scantlings she would be a tough nut to crack.

11. The Captain's Table

'To wives and sweethearts; may they never meet."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 3

However, in time the Strasburg pie, the smoked tongue, the other side-dishes, a noble Minorcan cheese, dessert and a capital port overlaid the unfortunate, even vulturine memory of the geese. They drank the King, wives and sweethearts, and confusion to Buonaparte, and then Jack, pushing back his chair and easing his waistcoat, said, 'Now, gentlemen, you will forgive me if I speak of matters to do with the ship.

Also

Reverse of the Medal

Ch 2

Fortunately soon after this the cloth was drawn and the toasts began. Among others they drank Wives and sweethearts and although the usual facetious murmurs of and may they never meet were heard all round the table it was remarkable that hardly a man, on this last leg of their voyage, was unaffected.

Pullings: "Never mind the manouvres, always go straight at them."

Master & Commander

Ch 3

(See Nelson Salt Story)

The Nelson Salt Story

Master & Commander

Ch 3

'I had the honour of serving under him at the Nile,' said Jack, 'and of dining in his company twice.' His face broke into a smile at the recollection.

'May I beg you to tell me what kind of a man he is?'

'Oh, you would take to him directly, I am sure. He is very slight - frail - I could pick him up (I mean no disrespect) with one hand. But you know he is a very great man directly There is something in philosophy called an electrical particle, is there not? A charged atom, if you follow me. He spoke to me on each occasion. The first time it was to say, "May I trouble you for the salt, sir?"

- I have always said it as close as I can to his way ever since - you may have noticed it. But the second time I was trying to make my neighbour, a soldier, understand our naval tactics - weather-gage, breaking the line, and so on - and in a pause he leant over with such a smile and said, "Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them." I shall never forget it: never mind manoeuvres - always go at 'em. And at that same dinner he was telling us all how someone had offered him a boat-cloak on a cold night and he had said no, he was quite warm - his zeal for his King and country kept him warm. It sounds absurd, as I tell it, does it not? And was it another man, any other man, you would cry out "oh, what pitiful stuff" and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm; but with him you feel your bosom glow, and - now what in the devil's name is it, Mr Richards? Come in or out, there's a good fellow. Don't stand in the door like a God-damned Lenten cock.'

The Nelson boat cloak story

Master & Commander

Ch 3

(See Nelson Salt Story)

The Lesser of Two Weevils joke

Fortune of War

Ch 2

Two weevils crept from the crumbs. 'You see those weevils, Stephen?' said Jack solemnly.

'I do.'

'Which would you choose?'

'There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.'

'But suppose you had to choose?'

'Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.'

'There I have you,' cried Jack. 'You are bit - you are completely dished. Don't you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!'

Stephen: "He who would pun would pick a pocket."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 4

'He that would make a pun would pick a pocket,' said Stephen, 'and that miserable quibble is not even a pun, but a vile clench.

After the dinner, the officers repair to the quarterdeck for coffee, and Stephen remarks to Jack

"What a wonderfully true voice Mr Hollom possesses."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 4

'What a wonderfully true voice Mr Hollom does possess, to be sure,' [Martin] said, cocking his ear towards the deck after a silent pause. 'A great blessing to any choir.' From this they went on to speak of the life of chaplains afloat, of naval surgeons, and of the Surprise.

12. Turning of the Tide

Jack: "We'll run like smoke and oakum."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 9

They were used to the Captain; they had nearly all of them seen him cracking on like smoke and oakum and they were pretty nearly sure he had not finished.

(The phrase 'smoke and oakum' is used several times in the latter half of the canon but there is no direct match to the film.)

Jack, looking at the Acheron's captain looking back at him as the chase begins: "Did I kill a relative of his in battle, perhaps? His boy, God Forbid?"

Desolation Island

Ch 7

So they ran another glass, and at the striking of the bell Jack moved to the poop: there, crouching with his telescope behind the taffrail, he inspected the Waakzaamheid. The moment he had it focused on her forecastle he had a curious shock, for there, full in his glass, was the Dutch captain, looking straight at him. There was no doubt about his tall, burly form, the distinctive carriage of his head: Jack was familiar with the enemy. But now, instead of his usual light blue, he had a black coat on. 'I wonder,' thought Jack, 'whether it is just an odd chance, or whether we killed some relative of his? His boy, perhaps, dear God forbid.'

13. A Small Surprise

The decoy ploy used against the Acheron of mimicking the stern lights of the ship.

Master & Commander

Ch 9

14. The Storm

As they head into the storm, Jack has the off-watch line the windward rail, and as they pass you hear:

"He's cracking on."

It'll be cracking off again if he don't watch her."

HMS Surprise

Ch 6, during the storm

'This is cracking on,' said Joliffe.

'It will be cracking off, presently,' said Church, 'if he don't take in.'

Also:

The Far Side of the World

Ch 4

The Surprise was as close-hauled as she could be, her weather-leeches shaking; it grew much stronger with the rising sun, and now she really showed what she could do on a bowline - her lee forechains under the splendid foam of her bow-wave, a white line racing down her side in a curve so deep that her copper showed amidships, and a broad wake that fled out straight behind her, a sea-mile every five minutes. With the idlers called and both watches on deck he packed them along the weather rail to make her stiffer still, set his mainroyal and stood there, braced against the slope of the deck, soaked with flying spray, his face drawn and covered with the bright yellow bristles of unshaven beard, looking perfectly delighted.

The Far Side of the World

Ch 9

They were used to the Captain; they had nearly all of them seen him cracking on like smoke and oakum and they were pretty nearly sure he had not finished. But no man had expected his call for the forecourse itself and it was with grave, anxious faces that they jumped to their task. It took fifty-seven men to haul the foresheet aft, to tally and belay; and as the strain increased so the Surprise heeled another strake, another and yet another, until she showed a broad streak of copper on her windward side, while the howl in the rigging rose shriller and shriller, almost to the breaking note. And there she steadied, racing through the sea and flinging a bow-wave so high to leeward that the sun sent back a double rainbow.

Discreet cheering started forward and spread aft: everybody on the quarterdeck was grinning.

'Watch your dog-vane,' said Jack to the helmsman. 'If you once let her be brought by the lee, you will never see Portsmouth Point again. Mr Howard, pray let your men line the weather gangway.'

15. Man Overboard

Warley is lost over the side during the storm

The Far Side of the World

Ch 5

Since the sheets were half-flown the sails instantly split at the seams, the maintopsail shaking so furiously that the masthead must have gone had not Mowett, the bosun, Bonden, Warley the captain of the maintop and three of his men gone aloft, laid out on the ice-coated yard and cut the sail away close to the reefs. Warley was on the lee yardarm when the footrope gave way under him and he fell, plunging far clear of the side and instantly vanishing in the terrible sea.

16. Pride or Duty

Stephen: "There is little more I detest than being called an informer."

Post Captain

Ch 11

'Can you tell me who are the ringleaders?'

'I cannot. No, sir: you may call me many things, but not an informer. I have said enough, more than enough.'

Stephen: "As a friend, I have never once doubted your abilities as a captain - "

Jack: "Speak plainly, Stephen."

Stephen: "Perhaps we should have turned back weeks ago and chasing this larger, faster ship with its long guns is beginning to smack of pride."

Jack: " It's not a question of pride or anything like it. It is a question of duty."

Stephen: "Duty, right, yes, I believe I have heard it well spoken of."

The Wine Dark Sea

Ch 10

'An uninviting prospect,' said Stephen. 'Last night I was unable to control my 'cello because of the erratic jerking of the floor, and this evening most of my soup is spread on my lap; while day after day men are brought below with cruel bruises, even broken bones, and are falling from the frozen ropes above or slipping on the icy deck below. Do you not think it would be better to go home?'

'Yes. It often occurs to me, but then my innate nobility of character cries out, "Hey, Jack Aubrey: you mind your duty, d'ye hear me there?" Do you know about duty, Stephen?'

'I believe I have heard it well spoken of.'

'Well, it exists. And apart from the obvious duty of distressing the King's enemies - not that I have anything against Americans: they are capital seamen and they treated us most handsomely in Boston. But it is my duty. Apart from that, I say, we also have a duty to the officers and the foremast jacks. They have brought the barky here in the hope of three China ships, and if I call out, "Oh be damned to your three China ships" what will they say? They are not man-of-war's men; and even if they were ...'

Stephen nodded. The argument was unanswerable. But he was not quite satisfied. 'As I was stuffing a green Andean parakeet this afternoon,' he said, 'another thought came to me. As you say, the Americans are capital seamen: they beat us hollow in the Java, and carried us prisoners away. Do you not feel that attacking three of their China ships is somewhat rash? Does it not smack of that pride which goeth before destruction?'

17. Our Destination

The Gunroom dinner and pudding scene

Then later, during some evening music:

Stephen: "The Enchanted Isles. They are said to be full of strange and wonderful beasts."

Jack: "When we get there, we'll have to stop for food and water. I promise you, during that time, several days at least, you can wander at will, collecting bugs and beetles to your heart's content."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 7

The arrival of the pudding cut him short, a most uncommonly splendid pudding brought in with conscious pride and welcomed with applause.

'What, what is this?' cried Jack.

'We thought you would be surprised, sir,' said Mowett. 'It's a floating island, or rather a floating archipelago.'

'It is the Galapagos themselves,' said Jack. 'Here's Albemarle, here's Narborough, here's Chatham and Hood

I had no idea there was anyone aboard capable of such a thing: a masterpiece, upon my word and honour, fit for a flagship.'

'One of the whalers made it, sir. He was a pastrycook in Danzig before he took to sea.'

'I put in the lines of longitude and latitude,' said the master. 'They are made of spun sugar; so is the equator, but double thick and dyed with 'port.'

'The Galapagos,' said Jack, gazing down on them. 'The whole shooting-match: there's even the Redondo Rock and Cowly's Enchanted Isle, laid down exactly. And to think we never set foot on a single one . . . sometimes ours is a very demanding profession.

'Stern daughter of the voice of God! 0 Duty!' said Mowett; but Jack, musing over the archipelago, which swayed with the heave of the ship, did not hear him, and went on, 'but I tell you what, gentlemen, if we come back this way, having done what we set out to do, we shall lie in Mr Allen's cove on James Island for a few days, and everyone shall have leave to roam to his heart's content.'

19. Survivors

Jack sees the marooned whalers as the rest of the ship views the wildlife of the Galapagos:

"Off tacks and sheets! Prepare the mainsail haul!"

The Far side of the World

Ch 7

'By your leave, sir, by your leave,' roared the captain of the afterguard, shouldering his way between them without the least ceremony as the pipes wailed for 'All hands about ship' and the seamen ran to their places.

'Why, Beckett, what's afoot?' asked Stephen.

But before Beckett could reply the Surprise began her smooth turn: the familiar cry of 'Helm's alee' was followed by 'Off tacks and sheets' and then by 'Mainsail haul'. She passed sweetly through stays in spite of the encumbrance of the cutters and at this point Stephen, looking ahead, saw a distant boat, a whale-boat, pulling towards them as fast as ever it could against the current.

Talking to Hogg after the whalers have been rescued.

The Far Side of the World

Ch 7

'When the American cleared the channel did she stand due west?' asked Jack.

'Well, sir,' said the specktioneer, 'maybe a point south of west. Moses Thomas and me, we went up to the shelter again and we watched her to the horizon, straight as a die, just a trifle south of west, topgallantsails on the fore and main.'

'For the Marquesas, specktioneer?'

'That's right, mate. There are half a dozen of us out there, and some Yankees too, now that the Sandwiches are not what they was, and New Zealand a disappointment, with the people eating you up if you so much as set foot on shore.'

'Good; very good. Mr Mowett, these men will be entered on the ship's books: capital hands, I am sure, to be rated able. Mr Adams will issue hammocks, beds, slops; and they will be excused duty for a couple of days, to recover. Mr Allen, we will clear the strait with the changing tide and lay a course for the Marquesas.'

'No tortoises, sir?' asked Mowett.

'No tortoises

20. Broken Promises

Stephen: "Jack, have you forgotten your promise?"

Jack: "Subject to the requirements of the service."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 7

'No tortoises, sir?' asked Mowett.

'No tortoises. We have been very economical with the ship's provisions and we can do without tortoise as a relish. No, no, she is eighteen days before us and there is not a moment to lose over tortoises or caviar or cream in our tea.'

With this he went below, looking thoroughly pleased. A few minutes later Stephen hurried into the cabin. 'When are we to stop?' he cried. 'You promised we should stop.'

'The promise was subject to the requirements of the service: listen, Stephen, here I have my tide, my current and my wind all combined - my enemy with a fine head-start so that there is not a moment to be lost - could I conscientiously delay for the sake of an iguano or a beetle - interesting, no doubt, but of no immediate application in warfare? Candidly, now?'

'Banks was taken to Otaheite to observe the transit of Venus, which had no immediate practical application.'

'You forget that Banks paid for the Endeavour, and that we did not happen to be engaged in a war at the time:

the Endeavour was not in pursuit of anything but knowledge.'

Stephen had not known this: it made him if anything angrier still, but he governed himself and said, 'As I understand it, you mean to go round the end of this long island on the left and start your voyage - take your departure - from the other side.' Jack gave a noncommittal nod. 'Well, now, were Martin and I to walk across it, we should be on the other side long before the ship. The proportions are as one to ten, so they are; and a little small boat could land us without any trouble at all, and take us off. We should walk briskly, pausing only for a few important measurements and almost certainly making valuable discoveries about springs of fresh water, mineral ores, antiscorbutic vegetables and the like.'

'Stephen,' said Jack, 'if the wind and the tide had been against us, I should have said yes: they are not. I am obliged to say no.' Landing them through the surf would be difficult; getting them off again on the west side might be quite impossible; and then the 'brisk walking' of two besotted natural philosophers across a remote oceanic island filled With plants and creatures unknown to science might last until the frigate sank at her moorings or grounded on her beef bones - he had seen Maturin on shore before this with nothing more than a Madeiran woodlouse to make him lose all sense of time. But he was sorry for his friend's disappointment, so much keener than he had expected from the desperately sterile look of the islands; he was even sorrier to see a tide of anger rise in Stephen's usually impassive face, and to hear the harsh tone in which he said, 'Very well, sir; I must submit to superior force, I find. I must be content to form part of a merely belligerent expedition, hurrying past inestimable pearls, bent solely on destruction, neglecting all discovery - incapable of spending five minutes on discovery. I shall say nothing about the corruption of power or its abuse; I shall only observe that for my part I look upon a promise as binding and that until the present I must confess it had never occurred to me that you might not be of the same opinion - that you might have two words.'

'My promise was necessarily conditional,' said Jack. 'I command a King's ship, not a private yacht. You are forgetting yourself.' Then, much more kindly, and with a smile, 'But I tell you what it is, Stephen, I shall keep in as close with the shore as can be, and you shall look at the creatures with my best achromatic glass,' - reaching for a splendid five-lens Dollond, an instrument that Stephen was never allowed to use, because of his tendency to drop telescopes into the sea.

'You may take your achromatic glass and. . .' began Stephen, but he checked himself and after the slightest pause went on, 'You are very good, but I have one of my own. I shall trouble you no longer.'

He was exceedingly angry...

23. Hollom's Weakness

Nagel knocks Hollom on the shoulder.

The Far Side of the World

Ch 3

...when he saw a sight so ugly that it checked the words in his gullet. Hollom was going forward along the larboard gangway: Nagel, an able seamen but one of the most sullen, bloody-minded and argumentative of the Defenders, was coming aft on the same narrow passage. They were abreast of one another; and Nagel walked straight on without the slightest acknowledgement other than a look of elaborate unconcern.

'Master-at-arms,' cried Jack. 'Master-at-arms. Take that man Nagel below. Clap him into bilboes on the half-deck.' He was exceedingly angry. He would do a great deal for a happy ship, but not for a moment would he put up with deliberate indiscipline: not for a moment, even if it meant running the frigate like a prison-hulk for the whole commission.

Stephen:"You see, I'm rather understanding of mutineers. Men pressed from their homes, confined for months aboard a wooden prison..."

Jack: "Stephen, I profoundly respect your right to disagree with me in this cabin, but I can only afford one rebel on this ship. I hate it when you talk of the Service in this way, it makes me so very low."

Post Captain

Ch 7

'As for mutinies in general,' said Stephen, 'I am all in favour of 'em. You take men from their homes or their chosen occupations, you confine them in insalubrious conditions upon a wholly inadequate diet, you subject them to the tyranny of bosun's mates, you expose them to unimagined perils; what is more, you defraud them of their meagre food, pay and allowances - everything but this sacred rum of yours. Had I been at Spithead, I should certainty have joined the mutineers. Indeed, I am astonished at their moderation.'

'Pray, Stephen, do not speak like this, flattering about the service; it makes me so very low. I know things are not perfect, but I cannot reform the world and run a man-of-war. In any case, be candid, and think of the Sophie - think of any happy ship.'

'There are such things, sure; but they depend upon the whim, the digestion and the virtue of one or two men, and that is iniquitous. I am opposed to authority, that egg of misery and oppression; I am opposed to it largely for what it does to those who exercise it.'

Jack: "For God's sake, Stephen, there's hierachies in even in nature, as you've often said yourself."

Stephen:"There is no disdain in nature, there is no - "

Jack: "Men must be governed. Often not wisely, I'll grant you, but governed, nonetheless."

Stephen: "That's the excuse of every tyrant in history, from Nero to Buonaparte, and I for one am opposed to authority. It is an egg of misery and oppression - "

Jack:"Your opposition is not my concern. You've come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother."

The Ionian Mission

Ch 2

'You are very good; but it is not that I have taken any disgust either to the young man or to the old. It is only that I dislike the whole notion of subordination. The corporal lurks in almost every bosom, and each man tends to use authority when he has it, thus destroying his natural relationship with his fellows, a disastrous state of affairs for both sides. Do away with subordination and you do away with tyranny: without subordination we should have no Neros, no Tamerlanes, no Buonapartes.

'Stuff,' said Jack. 'Subordination is the natural order: there is subordination in Heaven - Thrones and Dominions take precedence over Powers and Principalities, Archangels and ordinary foremast angels; and so it is in the Navy. You have come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother.'

and

Post Captain

Ch 7 (see above excerpt)

The flogging of Nagel

The Far Side of the World

Ch 3

'Have his officers anything to say for him?' They had not. Hollom, the only one who could in decency have spoken up, did not see fit to do so. 'Very well,' said Jack. 'Rig the grating. Ship's corporal, order the women below.' White aprons vanished down the fore hatchway and Nagel slowly took off his shirt with a sullen, lowering, dangerous air. 'Seize him up,' said Jack.

'Seized up, sir,' said the quartermaster a moment later.

'Mr Ward,' said Jack to his clerk, 'read the thirty-sixth Article of War.'

As the clerk opened the book all present took off their hats. 'Thirty-six,' he read in a high, official tone. 'All other crimes not capital, committed by any person or persons in the fleet, which are not mentioned in this act, or for which no punishment is hereby directed to be inflicted, shall be punished according to the laws and customs in such cases used at sea.'

'Two dozen,' said Jack, clapping his hat back on to his head. 'Bosun's mate, do your duty.'

Harris, the senior bosun's mate, received the cat from Hollar and did his duty: objectively, without ill-will, yet with all the shocking force usual in the Navy. The first stroke jerked an 'Oh my God' out of Nagel but after that the only sound, apart from the solemn count, was the hiss and the impact.

24. Jonah

Becalmed in the Doldrums, the crew look upon Hollom as a Jonah

The Far Side of the World

Ch 5

It was what they were used to, and they prized what they' were used to, even if it called for starting the day with sand and holystones on the wet deck long before sunrise and even longer before breakfast, even if it called for painting exposed parts of the ship while she swooped and plunged, flanking across the Atlantic swell with four men at the wheel and most of the watch standing by to let all go with a run: not that this happened often, since in general the winds were no kinder to her than they had been in the early part of the voyage; and many a wry look did Hollom's back receive, the back of a wind-eating Jonah for all his successful cruising in the gunner's private waters.

Stephen: "There is nothing physically wrong with him. He thinks he has been cursed."

Jack: "Not everything is in your books, Doctor.

Master and Commander

Ch 6

"He let it out [ that he was a sin-eater] and they all turned against him immediately. His mess expelled him; the others will not speak to him, nor allow him to eat or sleep anywhere near them There is nothing physically wrong with him, yet he will die in about a week unless I can do something."

25. The Doctor's Dilemma

Bonden asks: "Have you seen the bird, Doctor?"

"What bird?"

"Some sort of albatross. Either that or he's a prodigious great mew. There it goes."

The Far Side of the World

Ch 9

[Jack] 'Have you seen the bird?'

'I have not. No bird these many days. What kind of a bird?'

'A sort of albatross, I believe, or perhaps a prodigious great mew. He has been following the ship since - there he is, crossing the wake - he comes up the side.'

Stephen caught a glimpse of wings, huge wings, and he ran forward along the gangway to get a clear view from the bows. The fall from the gangway into the waist of the ship was not much above six feet, but Stephen was flung off with unusual force, and he hit his head on the iron breech of a gun.

26. Heal Thyself

The self surgery scene

HMS Surprise

Ch 11

27. The Fighting Naturalist

Stephen: "Nonsense, I shall name a great tortoise after you, Testudo aubreii."

HMS Surprise

Ch 11

'He is to immortalise your name. This is Testudo aubreii for all eternity; when the hero of the Nile is forgotten, Captain Aubrey will live on in his tortoise. There's glory for you.'

29. Nature and Naval Warfare

The Surprise is transformed into the whaler Syren.

Clarissa Oakes/The Truelove

Ch 8

'our best plan is to ... make the ship into a whaler: we turned her into a blue Spanish barque once, as I dare say you remember; and that answered quite well.' ... 'Now I know at least a score of you have been in the Greenland or South Seas fishery at one time or another, and I want those hands to choose the three longest-headed, most experienced men among them to help us change the barky into a whaler, a tired, shabby, down-at-heel, three-years-at-sea old whaler, short-handed and peaceful.'

30. Surprise is on our Side

"Quick's the word and sharp's the action."

and

"The Acheron will be a tough nut to crack."

Post Captain

Ch 11

'But every man and boy must attend to his duty tonight, he must mind it very carefully, because Chaulieu is a tough nut to crack - an awkward set of shoals - an awkward tide - and we must be every hand to his rope, and haul with a will, d'ye hear? Quick's the word and sharp's the action'

"More than twice our guns and more than twice our numbers."

Master and Commander

This alludes to the difference between Jack's ship Sophie and the Spanish ship, the Cacafuego who meet in a memorable battle.

Also:

HMS Surprise

Ch 9, when the Surprise takes on a French 74, the Marengo.

34. Captain's Orders

Pullings takes the Acheron as prize master and is promoted to captain.

The Far Side of the World

Ch 5

Captain Pullings, volunteering as a lieutenant on the Surprise, takes the captured packet Danae home as a prize.