Thursday, December the 18th, 2003

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Potted Biographies of a Marine Hue, No. 1

Captain Flask, of the HMS Corrugated Cardboard, was a bad and dangerous man. He never washed his hair, and he was fond of tormenting badgers. His ship was falling apart, because whenever any of his miserable crew tried to repair something, like the rigging, or a fo'c'sle, or even the whole orlop deck, he would fly into a rage like something out of the Old Testament, and the crew would be cowed, and go back below decks to their scrimshaw and grog.

Every day, all day, and every night, all night, Captain Flask lurched around the deck, shouting at the sky. In the pocket of his weskit, where his fob watch ought to have been, he kept a supply of tin baubles, and he would throw these at any birds that came within his range, particularly guillemots, which he loathed, and cormorants, which he did not understand, but his aim was not good, and he usually missed.One of his arms was withered from scrofula.

His fob watch lay, abandoned, in the untidy drawer of his escritoire, hidden among old pencils, bits of calico, drawing pins, bottle tops, cornflakes and dust. Every morning at six o' clock, or whatever that is in maritime parlance, Captain Flask drank a whole pint of milk of magnesia.

Oh, he was such a bad man! Such a dangerous man!