The Rip in the Fabric of the Universe ...

[Driver]

.. surprised him by performing a distinctly Regency bow. Waving his hand foppishly above his head, Staines brought it down below knee level, simultaneously placing one foot behind him and bowing at the waist.

"Prithee Sir Hornblower!" quoth he. "May I be first to congratulate your honour on your elevation to the captaincy. Gramercy and hurrah!"

The crew were taken completely aback by this totally unexpected display of gallantry from Staines. In unison they said:

"We are taken completely aback by this totally unexpected display of gallantry from Staines!"

Meanwhile, the Mother Farcquar ...

[craigb]

was about to remonstrate and be her usual bolshie self but to her amazement she wasn't allowed to because Fellatio cried...

"Bosun Bastard, be so good as to clap yon harriden in irons and consign her to the orlop deck"

"Aye aye Cap'n" said Bastard as he simultainiously tugged his forelock and manhandled the bulk of Mother Farquar down the companionway .

The rest of the crew, having witnessed these carryings on, were a tad nervous as it had suddenly becomne clear that in Fellatio they had a skipper to be reckoned with.

Master Bates .....

[Driver]

... shook his head in astonishment and pulled himself together (which, in his case, made a change........ However, we'll skip lightly over that one and get back to the narrative).

Things had obviously changed. In Hornblower the ship had a captain who was decisive and capable, it seemed. Bates approved of this.

Staines, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely. Bates watched him promenading about the maindeck with a powdered peruke wig atop his crusty old scone, waving a lace handkerchief, bowing to all and sundry and taking copious amounts of snuff.

"La, sir!" chirruped Beau Staines, the putative Regency dandy, to Leading Artificer Groans. "Would you do me the signal honour to take snuff with me? AAAAAAAHHHHHHCHOOOOO!"

He sneezed a great brown cloud of some noxious irritant in Groans' general direction. Groans leapt backwards to avoid the fallout and trod heavily on his arquebus - which he had propped against a bulwark. The ancient firearm promptly discharged a fusillade of nutritious and freshly-mixed muesli across the poop. It narrowly missed everyone but was the cause of not inconsiderable controversy for more than a few moments.

"Groans!' roared Hornblower. "Groans, there! Lay aft to the poop deck and bring that damn' fool Staines with ye!"

Groans ...

[fxst]

was about to make a monumentous comment when suddenly the stardust fairy appeared and with a flick of her wand all aboard the VGLI fell fast asleep transfixed in time waiting for someonr to break the spell............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Driver]

And Lo! The spell was broken.

Stretching a somnolent leg, Staines awoke and belied his new-found Regency fop persona by cracking a tremendous fart.

Such was the momentously bass nature of this horrendous thrombugler that the very timbers of the vessel shivered from masthead to keelson.

The crew were jolted from their ....

[craigb]

Sally clapped her hands.

"Wasn't that the poorest segue we've ever experinced children?"

She enquired.

Tarquin ...

[Driver]

... who had bitten his tongue quite severely upon hearing of Staines' latest digestive transgressions, leapt to his feet

"Mith!" he lisped loudly, encumbered as he was by a tongue swollen to twice its normal size competing with the ill-fitting braces on his teeth. "Mith! I do feel that the authorth of thith thtwange thtorwy ought not to thpend time dethcwibing Thtaineth'th appalling habitth. Ith dithguthting!"

Sebastian was not particularly thrilled with Tarquin's outburst. He sat directly in front of Tarquin which put him well within effective spray range. He stood up carefully, wiping the back of his neck with his handkerchief. Turning, he fixed Tarquin with a gimlet eye and said, through clenched jaws:

"Pipe down, pipsqueak! No-one's interested in your half-witted pronouncements - and if you spray me once more with your manky spittle, I'll staple your buttocks together with your rotten teeth braces!"

Susan ....

[fxst]

was taken aback and then forwards but before she could deal with Sebastians outburst a dark fearsome shadow was cast over........

[Driver]

... the maindeck of the Very Little Gravitas Indeed.

Susan resumed reading

Yes! It was Her Horrible Self! The Mother Farcquar had been awakened, as had the ship's entire complement, by Staines' bottom and its fearsome output.

She lumbered across to where he lay in that half-awake, half-asleep state that most of us experience when morning breaks. However, poor Staines did not slowly come fully awake to the cheerful sound of the morning lark. Instead, he received yet another swift kick in the short ribs. This time delivered by the Mother Farcquar:

"Was that you?" she demanded. "Was that you who did that terrible brump? ANSWER ME!"

"Wha..?" Staines was perplexed. He ....

[craigb]

reached for his periwig but alas it had all been a dream and he wasn't a Regency fop at all, just a flatulent ne'er do well seaman.

Depressed at this sudden realisation of his station in life, Staines took the opportunity to make misery for the only unfortunate actually lower than he on the VLGI.

"Aha, young Roger!" he cried, with, it must be said, a rather evil glint in his eye, "berth yon buttocks alongside the good ship Staines for I have task for thee".

Roger was mortified. "Oh no" he thought to himself "not....

[AlexS]

...another round of nominative determinism. Why couldn't I have been called Roland Rich, or some other pleasant vocation?"
His reverie was interrupted by the martinet Captain Hornblower. "You think you have problems! Ever since I was a junior midshipman I've had my unfortunate name shoved down my throat. And what about poor Bosun Bastard? Imagine if he'd been born to the Limpwrist family, instead of being born a Bastard? Just settle down young feller, there's lots worse things than finding Seaman Staines in your bed."

The Mother Farcquar, who had been listening with interest to this tirade, interrupted with...

[Driver]

... her customary grace and tact.

"What a lot of bollocks!" quoth she. "You've always been a fathead, Hornblower! Just because you've somehow become a captain hasn't changed any....errk!"

She was in turn interrupted by several of Sponcracker's droids who yanked her off her feet and carried her off to the brig.

"Thank you, Sponcracker," said Hornblower. "I was ....

[craigb]

about to say that the cook Captain Cook-Bastard has spied a sail from the Crow's Nest"

At this unexpected news a murmour that rapidly approached a hubub borke out among the crew.

Great was their excitement and talking over each other and interrupting each other they pressed Fellatio for details.

At length, when the clamour had at last died down he addressed them.

"Yes, a sail. Cook-Bastard has clearly spied what appears to be a 74 gun ship of the line. However, the bad news is that she's flying the Tricolour".

"Aha, bloody Frenchies!" cried Lieutenant Colonel Frontbottom "I thought...

[echnidna]

... they might turn up just before we discover hawstraylia.

[Driver]

However, although several members of the crew were distracted by the sudden appearance of a Frog man 'o' war, stouter hearts aboard the Very Little Gravitas Indeed were not at all put out.

Muttering a phrase that had sprung, unbidden, into the forefront of what passed for his mind, to whit (anybody who is tempted to add "to woo" will be keel-hauled) .... I repeat, to whit:

"Cheese-eating surrender monkeys!"

Groans sprang to the portside gunwales, lifted a loudhailer to his salty old mush and, pointing the instrument at the French ship, yelled

"BOO!!'

in stentorian tones.

The effect was instantaneous and dramatic. The Frenchie's sails spilled air, she luffed, she yawed, she came about, she bloody near disappeared up her own transom...... White flags of surrender burst out in a flurry all over her upper yards.

"I say, Groans!" said Frontbottom. "Well done! Looks like the Frogs have given up!"

Just then ....