The Rip in the Fabric of the Universe ...

[silentC]

But everything was still still

[Driver]

"Unless my hearing's playing up," said Groans. "There seems to be an echo on the main deck!"

"Your hearing! Playing up?!?" scoffed Staines. "is this likely? I mean, is this even remotely possible? Your hearing, which has been a byword for years throughout the Spanish Main, playing up?!? Impossible! Utterly impossible! Hah!"

Such was the extent, scope and range of Staines' scorn that he had twisted his pantaloons so far sideways that his front faced 43 degrees off the mean. This caused him to walk diagonally across the maindeck and brought his shins into painful contact with a bulwark. This, in turn, tripped him and he found himself face down in the afore-mentioned steaming pile of albatross droppings.

He levered himself, glutinously, to a kneeling (and, it must be said, highly smelly) position just as Frontbottom sauntered past.

"I say, Staines!" quoth the Royal Marine. " Do stop wallowing around in that pile of offensive guano! You're making one hell of a stench!"

He sauntered away ...

[fxst]

not realising thta this was the serve of the day on this ship of the line ..............

[Driver]

Staines rose slowly to a crouching, ape-like stance. Great skeins of a diaphanous membrane-like substance stretched like wings beneath his arms and legs. Festoons of globulous guano swung from his elbows, nose and ears. An appalling rancid stench hung about him like a foul miasma. He was, in summary, not a pretty sight.

(Well .... even at the best of times Staines was not a pretty sight but his present circumstances were so far beyond pretty as to require some wholly different scale of description).

The captain considerd Staines, his head on one side. On the whole, he thought he preferred Staines' ludicrous imitation of a Regency dandy to this shyt-stricken wretch.

"Y'know," he observed to Frontbottom. "On the whole, I think I preferred Staines' ludicrous imitation of a Regency dandy to this shyt-stricken wretch."

Frontbottom was about to reply when a harrowing cry arose from Staines' direction.

"AAAARRGH!" he yelled. "LOOK AT ME BLOODY UNIFORM! I'M ALL COVERED IN ALBATROSS POO! HOW'M I GONNA GET THIS MESS OFF ME KIT?!!?"

To say that Groans was surprised is to understate the case.

"I'm surprised!" he said. "In fact that is understating the case! I didn't realise you took that much pride in your uniform, Staines!"

"STAINS?!?" said Staines. "STAINS?!? THESE AREN'T STAINS! I'M COVERED FROM HEAD TO TOE IN A THICK LAYER OF BLOODY ALBATROSS POO AND YOU TALK ABOUT STAINS!"

"No, no, shipmate," said Groans in a soothing and placatory manner. "You misunderstand. When I said 'Staines', I was addressing you, not referring to the discolouration of your uniform. It's because your name is Staines, y'see. Sounds exactly like a mark or discolouration. Easy mistake to make. No need to apologise."

"WILL YOU STOP YAMMERING YOU DEAF OLD BASTARD!!!" Staines was clearly upset. "IT'S BAD ENOUGH WHEN YOU GO ROUND ASKING PEOPLE TO REPEAT THEMSELVES BUT THIS .... THIS ..... BLOODY .... CRAPPY .... I CAN'T ..... I'VE HAD ENOUGH ..... THAT'S IT!"

He lurched towards Groans, hands reaching towards the Leading Artificer's throat. Groans backed away from the awful apparition and, in so doing ......

[silentC]

... tripped over the body of the deceased Diomedeidae Diomedea, which had plummeted to the deck not moments before, and lurched backwards over the side. Now as anyone who has ever tripped over a dead albatross and fallen over the side of a ship will know, ...

[Driver]

... it helps if you can swim.

Groans could. He did.

After disappearing briefly below the surface, he rose into the view of all those now lining the rail. Blowing a thin stream of salty water from his pursed lips, he yelled .....

[silentC]

"Where the bloody hell are you?" ...

[Driver]

...to which the entire crew and all the hamsters yelled back, in unison:

"What'd 'e say?"

and collapsed laughing.

"Oh! Har dee bloody har!"

Groans' words decreased in volume as he was swiftly swept away in the ship's wake.

"Groans! Mate!" yelled a shyt-stricken apparition as he flung himself over the side, a lifebelt and lifeline tucked into the encrusted guano beneath his left arm.

Just as .....

[AlexS]

..a Japanese scientific research ship, the Sushi Maru, which had spotted Groans' saline spout, appeared over the horizon....

[Iain]

and the skipper called out 'arroy yeer, irratt criff rodga', not receiving a response from the drowning man the skiiper decided that this specimen in the water was indded too small to provide a sushi sample for the crew and turned about and headed for the rising sun, a popular hotel in the footscray region............

[Driver]

However, the stern lookout on the Sushi Maru, a beady-eyed little bugger called Eagaroo Ayee-San, had spotted the flailing figure of Staines, thrashing his way towards Groans.

Staines' albatross-crap-encrusted scone bore a striking resemblance to the frontispiece of the minke whale. This was quite sufficient for Eagaroo-Ayee!

"Whayroo-Ho!" he yelled (why the hell he didn't say this in Japanese is beyond the understanding of the present writer but let that stand).

The Sushi Maru executed a remarkably swift 180 and went from cruising to attack speed in the blink of a beady little eye. The harpoonist, Speeya Chaka San, raced to his bow-mounted weapon and primed it.

Staines, meanwhile, had reached Groans and was engaged in the complex process of wrapping the lifeline around him.

Having succeeded in preventing Staines from garrotting him, Groans was looking forward to being hauled back to the Very Little Gravitas Indeed, when an orange rubber ducky came belting past the Sushi Maru and ...

[Iain]

Mocca-Mocca Su Su

[silentC]

... who was a Greenpeace activist and in command of the rubber duck, shouted "Scientific research my aarse!!" as he (it is a he isn't it?) piloted his craft on a collision course with the Sushi Maru. "My life has been building up to this moment," thought Mocca-Mocca Su Su, as he stared certain death in the navel. It would have been the teeth, but he was quite short for his height. "This is for Nanky Poo," he shouted as he ...

[Driver]

... hauled his waterproof trousers southwards, bent over and mooned the crew of the Sushi Maru.

"Did I mention my aarse?" he yelled as the rubber ducky sped once down the starboard side of the whaler. Sending a huge shower of spume skywards, the rubber ducky whizzed in a tight curve round the stern of the Sushi Maru and proceeded to speed up the port side.

Mocca the activist was so busy trying to ensure he stayed aboard the rubber ducky while it performed its manoeuvres that he had neglected to adjust his position relative to the Japanese vessel. This meant that his former extremely rude mooning position on the starboard side of the vessel had become a very respectful bowing position on the port side.

This did not pass unnoticed by the whaling crew. They lined the portside rail and returned Mocca's bow.

"Ah!" said Eagaroo-Ayee-san. "Most respectafuroo acativist-san!"

Meanwhile, at the harpoon, Speeya Chaka-san was lining up his harpoon's sights on Staines and Groans!

Mocca, overtaking the Sushi Maru in his rubber ducky ...

[Caliban]

decided that if he couldn't win the bloody archibald prize with his "save the whales" entry then he'd bloody well hit the (other) little bastards over the head with it. Whereupon he...