"A hundred and fifty-seven castaways on a desert island in the South China Sea, the survivors of the wreck of HMS Diane, which had struck upon an uncharted rock and had there been shattered by a great typhoon some days later: a hundred and fifty-seven men, but as they sat there round the edge of a flat bare piece of ground between high-water mark and the beginning of the forest they sounded like the full complement of a ship of the line, for this was Sunday afternoon, and the starboard watch, headed by Captain Aubrey, was engaged in a cricket-match against the Marines, under their commanding officer, Mr Welby." (p. 9)

"'Another misery of human life,' remarked Stephen to the morning darkness, 'is having a contubernal that snores like ten.'
I was not snoring,' said Jack. 'I was wide awake. What is a contubernal?'
'You...