Douglas Reeman

Quotes

1. There she was, Beer's Unity, with almost every sail set and filled so that she appeared to be leaning forward into the surging spray beneath her beakhead. The huge broad-pendant straight out like painted metal, a picture of naval strength at its best.

2. 

   As the wind and quarter-sea had mounted the Indomitable, big though she was, had seemed to bound from trough to trough like the lion she followed, sail and spindrift pouring from the bulging canvas like tropical rain.

3. 

   ...the American's upper yards and punctured sails rose above the fog of gunfire like a cliff.

4. 

   Released from the land Indomitable heeled over to the thrust of canvas and rudder, the sea almost brushing her lee gunports while she came about, sails thundering as fore and mainsails were hauled and beaten into submission.

5. 

   There will always be slaves, no matter what people promise and pretend.

6. 

   ‘Never speak of a last letter to anbody, doi you hear me? for it may well be your last, if you dwell on it too much!’

7. 

   He saw himself reflected in other people's faces, and the horror and the pity he saw there had never ceased to wound him.

8. 

   Seven years. It seemed impossible. So much had happened since that time. Friends killed: fine ships lost or battered into hulks in every corner of the world and across the ocean.

9. 

   ‘He doesn't understand. The navy is my life. My only life, now. The war will not last for ever, but until it ends I shall stand in the line-of-battle as I have been entrusted to!’

10. 

    He was ashamed and embarrassed, angry too that such a man could end like this. If peace did eventually come, there would be many more redcoats begging in the streets.

11. 

    Each gun-captain was a king, every breech a small demanding kingdom.

12. 

    You know how sailors love to create mystery where there is none.