Tag Archives: Biology

Merwenchery: a Guide to Consorting with Mermaids

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Ahar mates, tis ye noble Captain Ignatius Pigheart here to advise ye on matters o’ affection. Ye may address me as Captain Loveheart.

Of What We Speaks

Tis o’course that finest love which a man may feel that I speaks of today. Aye, the feelings that a mere gent of ye kind should be wracked with when ye catch that salty tang in ye nostrils (assumin’ ye’ve not sacrificed ye schnozzle to the arctic fogs, in which case I advise ye inhale deeply and roll ye scents around ye mouth). Tis the pinnacle o’ bestiary perfection, ye mermaid. Aye, for though they be the things o’ folklore and madmen rantin’ in taverns, and sometimes even a drunk’s explanation for why they were found pinned beneath a dugong, they are the most beautiful creatures in the sea. Ye might offer in contest the dolphin, the parrotfish, the deep sea angler. And yet me friends, have they bosoms? Nay, they do not. And that should suffice to explain the feelings that even now must be a-stir in ye breast and manly regions.

Bear ye compass down on a Merwench

First, how may a pirate or louche gentleman such as yerself find, and attract a fishy lass? Tis a troublesome affair if ye heartstrings be not tuned to the scaly whisper o’ her heartbeats. If they be, the very pulse of the sea’ll beat in ye skull, directin’ ye wheelspin and the tilt of ye draught. Tis a warmin’ within for the cold touch of the marvellous merlass.

Otherwise I commend to ye a lifetime o’ crawlin’ the oceans with hope in ye heart and rum in yer belly. There’ll be naught in this life to bring ye joy. Perhaps ye should nuzzle ye temple with ye pistol’s muzzle.

Merladiery Happenstance

Should ye chance upon a merwench while stranded tis a fine opportunity to throw yeself upon her mercy. If ye piteousness and her loneliness be equal upon the great scales o’ romance tis likely ye fish lust’ll be assuaged. Drowning’s a ploy ye might advance upon with some likelihood of success. They’ve a fondness for the lack o’ swimmability in ye common man. They might steal ye last breath for bubbles, but at least ye’ll have tasted her sweet lips. With luck she’ll whisk ye off to her nethersea cave for divers pleasures. Returnin’ from ye undersea realms is a tricky matter. Tis possible ye’ll die there.

Tis a different matter indeed if ye nets once cast draw in a wench o’ piscine persuasion. Ye may find her less thrilled than yourself to be roughly dumped with a slew o’ fish upon your deck. I advise ye make yer apologies and your cabin available to the lady. Your natural charm and handsome features’ll doubtless turn her to ye. There be a certain school o’ thought recommending capture and the loves that may form through fear… Tis not to be borne me friends. Aye, for love comes to ye – she should not wish to escape ye hooked embrace.

Wooin’ at Ye Merlass

When ye encounters a mademoiselle de mer in her habitat naturelle, ye should account yourself with honesty and courage. And yet salt ye bravado with sweetness and an enticin’ manner. Ye fishwench’re a teasin’ folk and enjoy ye romantic overtures. Try a gentle croonin’, tis sure to reassure her that ye be not a shark or crocobeast. They are romantic creatures. If ye manner be the opposite of a be-toothed manatee or pond-barracuda then ye be one step ahead already.

Aaarr, beasts o’ stroking and rubbin’ they be. Ye might consider detachin’ any battle or needlework prosthetics before engagin’ in the writhin’ magics o’ love. Tis considered rude, as with ye land lasses, to pierce ‘em by accident. Now ye’ll find a mermaid’s anatomy curious (though tis doubtless the incitement of ye love keening). Being a gentleman I’ll not dwell on the mernethers overmuch, save to note that once ye go fish ye’ll never seek another dish.

Here Endeth The Lesson

So that’s ye lesson for today. I hopes ye manage to cool ye ardour betwixt a mermaid’s fins, but if ye do not – fear not. Ye be but a common man with no features special enough to draw their salted mackereline amour upon ye. There’s no shame in it, and I recommend to ye a night in Lady Taschewitche’s House Of Curious and Unlikely Love. Tis located but a few moments stroll from this hall – mention Captain Loveheart and receive a night’s womanticore attention for a shilling.

Further Readin’, for the Scholars ‘Mongst Ye

The Mermaid Adventure – surely the most romantic wooery ever conducted twixt man and fishgirl.

The Exquisite Mermaid Adventure – some hint of ye consequences o’ lying with a merlass.

An Amourous Adventure – a short re-tellin’ of oceanic conquest.

 

Vermouth Thursday ~ Galaxy Team

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“Paris 1993 [Eiffel tower] Thursday July 22rd 17:53 [same shot of the Eiffel tower with a vast spaceship hovering over it]. The first recorded appearance of the intergalactic space villain, self-dubbed ‘Vermouthinator’ (over two hundred appellations to his name have been recorded – all honorific titles, apparently self-created as an expression of his extreme egotism). Vermouthinator contacted all humans on Earth directly, simultaneously entering their minds instead of all forms of traditional communication. His message was short and cryptic and has been pieced together from a variety of surviving sources [montage of confused Parisians]:  

“Greetings human filth. It is I, the Ineffably Wondrous Lord of the Demiverse, Sculptor of Wonder, Imbiber of Galactic Fluids – the one and only Vermouthinator. Congratulations are due to your mixologists and cocktailliers. It is martini time.” [photograph of a martini glass]

This initial contact may have been mis-calibrated in either its force or content. Certainly the overture while apparently contemptuous, did not speak of an intent for the carnage that ensued. While all of humanity received a message (albeit in English, which was wasted on many), the area immediately around Paris, in a roughly 1000 mile radius was particularly affected by the intensity of the communication [map with big red circle]. Religious fundamentalists appeared to take the brunt of the damage, suffering from the now well-documented ‘Mental Expulsion Trauma’ (see appendix xii). 

In summary: the contact forced a paradigm shift upon those affected. Undeniable evidence of non-terrestrial life or the sudden telepathic contact so vastly exceeded their supposed realities that their natural mental plasticity (the ability to compartmentalise irreconcilable information) was unable to cope. The result: their mental states were forced out of their physical structures to a point 14 inches to the left of their skull [image of a ghostly brain hanging above a mannequins shoulder]. It is notable that individuals suffering from schizophrenia and related disorders were less likely to be fatally affected.

Of the affected individuals 98.995% are now deceased, their vegetative states determined permanent. Rumours persist of sentient plants and animals who were within that 14 inch translocation range [photograph of 'Benny the Signing Dandelion' and 'Aquat, the Scholarly Squirrel']. Few of these cases have been verified, nor have the accounts of sightings of Alpha Strangemind and the Galaxy Team in heavily affected regions apparently armed with “high-tech butterfly nets” [artist's impression of techno-net].”

The film jerks to a stop, black streaks overtaken by white which flicker over the curious figure hunched before the screen. He is tall and thin, dressed in a fake silk dressing gown with a dragon cheaply embroidered on the back; his feet and ankles are bony and uncovered. With a snort of disgust he spits on the concrete floor and stabs the button on his arm rest which re-starts the film. The shadows cast by the television throw his long body back across the bleak room; his head tails weakly off the top of his shoulders. The shadow is no trick of the light: his head really is tiny. This is Pip, first child of Anne and Doyle Humpester; Galactobrain to his fans; Milkymind to his brothers; Bollockface to his enemies. The last is cruel but apt observation. He stands and hurls his Kit-Kat mug across the room. It falls short of the opposing wall and shatters on the concrete sending a coffee slick into the cracks.

“Oi. You can clear that lot up right now mister,” the door flies open to reveal the voluptuous figure of Comely Strangemind, wife and partner to the legendary Galaxy Team patriarch Alpha (formerly Mr and Mrs Doyle Humpester). She stands there with her stark black mask in place but otherwise wrapped in a towel, steaming from the shower.

Pip whirls around, his eyes bulging in surprise. They’re the biggest thing in his head, which looks exactly like someone’s taken a tennis ball and stapled a pair of poached eggs onto it. He bursts into tears. The way his face is squeezed means that his tear ducts are unnaturally pressed against his cheek bones and the tears spurt forward like windscreen washers.

Comely crosses the room and crushes her son to her breast, “Oh Pip, you must stop watching that.”

“I just hate him so much mum, it’s all his fault…” his tears soak into Comely’s towel. Quietly Comely extrudes a length of tail-like flesh and scoops the broken mug up and into the waste basket by the door. She sits down and pops Pip on her knee where he continues his bitter sobbing.

Pip is one of only twenty-three human survivors of the ironically titled Vermouth Thursday’s Mental Expulsion Trauma. At the time of the Vermouthinator’s fateful message he had been seven, an outwardly normal boy (if rather tall) with extraordinary mental powers. He had been instrumental in the development of Galaxy Team since before he was born and so had been involved in some of his parents’ earliest experiments on he and his siblings.

On Vermouth Thursday Alpha and Comely had strapped Pip into a device of their devising intended to map and amplify the already prodigious mind he possessed – the augMentation. Pip was a willing participant, keen to expand and develop the neoScience of Galaxy Team. His mind was wide open, the virtual tendrils of their machinery exposing and teasing apart his mind. When Vermouthinator blasted out his greeting to humanity Pip’s mind was naked and vulnerable. The words blasted into him, amplified a billion-fold by the augMentation. Unlike the millions who died almost instantly, the extraordinary mental prowess enabled him to find an escape from the endless reverberations of alien inanities. He tapped into the Quantum Occlusion (which shielded the village of Llandwi-ge-Hw from outsiders) and ejected his mind past the 14 inch limit. He went too far. Bent around the Occlusion, it strained his mind and the physical matter of his brain out into space and beyond. The stream of his ideation found its entangled particles and flowed around the converse edge of the universe, re-emerging into real space inside the Small Megallanic Cloud where it discovered structure sufficient to accommodate his mind, though massively dispersed.

Despite Alpha’s best efforts they had been unable to reverse the process – Pip’s brain was no longer located in his body – it was a galaxy two hundred million light years away. On Earth the shell of his head had buckled, cracking and collapsing unable to tolerate the vacuum within. Somehow he still controlled his body though it was some weeks before he fully integrated his disparate mentality between the stars. When he did regain the power of speech it was a huge relief to his parents who had almost ceased their experiments on their other offspring in concern. With the return of speech came a darkness born of the deep space in which he now lived, and despite being only a child, he swore vengeance on Vermouthinator. 

Anne had grown used to finding Pip watching the news reports of Vermouth Thursday over and over again. Despite his galactic intelligence he just could not find it in him to forgive Vermouthinator for destroying his face. That he had likely gained immortality at the age of seven by replanting his consciousness in another galaxy was small comfort for a young man who ought to be chasing girls like the Beastlie Brothers (though hopefully with more success). All of Comely’s attempts to steer him away from revenge had failed. It seemed the only thing to do was to help him avenge himself. 

“Pip, we know he’ll be back one day, people like him always come back.” Pip judders with rage and the force of tears firing upwards from his eyes.

“He’s not a person mum, we don’t know where he’s from or what he is.” Pip’s fingers begin to jerk in a complex pattern of virtual keystrokes and command gestures.

“Let’s try and find out shall we? You know your father’s been working on the Vortex. We could go and find him, out there.” The holographic screen appears in the room before them, engineering designs, molecular structures and anatomical diagrams flash away with a single gesture from Pip. A detailed image of the Milky Way resolves itself in the air and streaks past to reveal the cloudy mass of stars that compose Pip’s mind. They pierce the outer halo and streaks of stardust. Comely cannot help but wonder what part of Pip’s mind they are looking at. What happens when a star dies in his mind…

Pip’s tears dry up and his face takes on a distant, calculating aspect. He points at a cluster of stars and the view zooms in to show a star with its orrery of planets gliding by, “I wonder if he’s in me.” The thought makes Comely’s second skin crawl under her towel.

Captain Pigheart’s Gastronomical Adventure

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Foul winds and Captain Aaarsbeard had driven us out of our comfort zone into a running sea battle. We’d valiantly discharged our balls into Aaarsbeard’s stern till there was naught left but a flaming ring upon the waves.Though victorious, our own portside resembled a whore after happy hour, full o’ holes with seamen falling out. Our sails were in tatters and we limped along until we ran into a smashing reef. Away we swam, and dragged along them souls still bafflingly unable to swim, to the island which the reef encircled.

It were the kind of island where a man longs to bury his treasure. Alas, me gold was now being colonised by humourous octopi who amused themselves by hurling coins at me splashing crew.Now I knows ye may be afeard for the safety of meself and me crew and yet ye should worry little, for this maroonin’ lark is bread and butter to us pirate types. Ye forestation were lush as Eve’s own lady garden before she choked on the serpent’s apple, so we’d not want for sustenance. In time we’d assemble a rude craft to take us back to our wives and other foes. In the meantime we rigged shelters and foraged amongst the local flora for spit-roastable fauna.

I must confess it were a tasty isle with such rare delights to me tongue as I’ve rarely had to me loins. Gaaargh. Each beast tasted sweeter than the last, none more so than the friendly monkeys with the imploring eyes who hopped into our laps.

Understand this, we’d not planned to munch on ‘em, for cute they were with their plushness and appealing blinketing. Twas fate that pushed them twixt our teeth, for they were unwise in the ways of me men. Through excessive petting one grew over-excited and bounced into the fire where it was immolated with an adorable squeak. Why, it would be churlish to waste its accidental encookination… Monty McBuboe served the long-tailed sweetmonkey coiled on a bed o’ forest cabbage with a garnish of amphibious foreskin.

Gaargh… After that we hunted them rapaciously, desperate to cram as much of their divine flesh into us as possible. Every day me and the lads’d rise, with increasing difficulty, and go monkey-crooning.

Whilst out on ye hunt, by which I means casually hooting and herding the keen little beasts into a sack, No Hands Mick were pounced upon by one of the lemurian lunches. The little snackle-ape took exception to the tone of his croon (Mick were apt to ignore me schoolin’s) and it snapped at him with unusual force. Luckily Mick had lost both hands in a tragic oyster incident so when ye monkey latched on, twas only to wood and brass, granting Mick the freedom to bounce it off a rock. It rebounded into First Mate Billy no Mates’ arms, with whom Mick’d been reluctantly saddled.

The stripe-furred ingredient landed in his arms akimbo, its huge pain-filled eyes bored into Billy’s own and as it twitched convulsively, young Billy saw a possible friend at last. He ran back to camp, ignoring Mick’s hungry bellows and barricaded himself in his shack where he stuffed the beast fat with desperate friendship and fruit.

Meanwhile, our epicurean spasms made us rotund and liable to roll into the sea where we’d bob like apples till rescued. And worse, we’d devoured almost every living thing on the rock. And in further worsening, the food was fighting back. We’d found old Archibald Flim-Flam lying in a ring o’ monkey dung, his spectacles speckled with blood and his bones picked clean. Me cankled crew spotted the last vanguard of them gibbon-goujons above him, but no amount o’ hurling their weight at the tree could relax their delicious digits’ grip.

We’d grown short of plans (and breath) till one day as we lay walrusine on the sand, Billy No Mates emerged from his shack, cradling that piteous and well-stuffed monkey like a dead twin. Hamish noted a likeness twixt its big blue eyes and strippled fur and the devilry that spat at us through the canopy. And so a ploy congealed twixt me ears: we’d use Billy’s tufted moppet to lure out the last of his kind and furnish ourselves with another meal. (After which we really must attend to the matters of ship-building and escape.)

Billy took some catching, for he’d grown thin while the floppy ape grew fat on his doting. Twas an effort just to stop me peg leg from sinking up to me hip, let alone run about. But at last we pinned them both down and, to placate Billy’s pleading, tied ‘em together in a pit beneath the monkeys’ tree. I’d no desire to eat the sickening beast for it mainly shivered and slavered whenever Billy hugged it, whispering into its ear.

Me and the fat lads waited in the bushes, attempting for quiet but falling foul of various gastric ailments and the need to chew on anything nearby. Thankfully the howling of the monkey, or Billy (twas hard to distinguish ‘em) veiled our greed nicely.

The sweet simians showered us with bum-berries and abuse in the chittering tongue they employed instead o’ English. Once they’d beaten us off they seized the baboony babe and Billy and buggered off into the bushes.

Gaargh, we found Billy No Mate’s bones some days later. Ye could tell it were him since he were missing. And also his skull had the same look of pathetic friendlessness as when it were clad in skin.

So that were it, no more food. We turned at last to ship-building and on each other. I’d found a handy conch shell and I used it to summon me men. We used dice to make a simple choice, for we’d found that delicious though ye monkeys are, they’d found an even finer meal in us.

Franklyn de Gashe – The Simian Entertainment

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After several week of intensive work in my laboratories, I’d decided to take the afternoon off to imbibe sweet smoke and brandy. But after only an hour of dawdling in my drawing room I’d felt a need to have my buttocks more securely clasped and I adjourned to my club. Once there I swiftly re-seated myself in my favoured leather chair bounded by the great hearth on one side and the collected works of Alan Derriere on the other.

I was drifting into a pleasant insensibility when a hubbub ruffled the club‘s atmosphere. At best its members are a somnolent bunch and so anything breaching the murmur of private discourse sends a ripple through the smoky peace. I risked a peek. There was a clamour at the windows where the sunlight fluttered erratically, casting satanic shadows into the room. Engaged, despite my languor, I joined the group squawking by the window. I was halfway through a witty remark when the panes crashed inward, followed by black mass of panic.

And then the flying monkeys fell upon me. The air was filled with their angry whooping and fiendishly accurate faeces flinging. They were my greatest success and failure together in one terribly malformed hybridisation. I’d sought only to equip myself with the perfect manservant, companion and pet. I was surprised to find that once more, science had not done exactly as I asked.

Using my considerable powers of reasoning and mastery of the empirical method I had expended the majority of a local menagerie in my experiments. The only creatures that proved compatible were the humble barbary ape and the majestic goose. How my heart swelled as the brute barked, sneezed and immediately brewed a perfect cup of lemon tea. So flushed was I with triumph that I foresaw a brave new future of mankind and goose-ape ruling the earth hand in claw-wing.

After a short apprenticeship Mister Tribblings, for such I had be-monickered him, took to experimenting alone at night whilst I slept, supervised by the moon and the fitfully active medical waste I’d inserted into his expanded cranium. To my great sadness, the beast was afflicted with a melancholy whose bitterness he turned upon me, for reasons I struggle even now to grasp. For did not his fur and feathers almost grow together in a convivial manner? Even the wing grafts had eventually healed with a minimum of residual weeping and infection.

However, I was unaware of the animosity which grew every time I gently chucked him on his beaky chin or explained how all of his kin had died when I forgot to clean my knives. His nocturnal activities continued in secret until Mr Tribblings was ready to unleash the flapping horde which now plagued me.

The club members fought back with typical Britishness, tutting and brandishing a jumble-sale’s worth of weaponry at the squalling apes. For the most part this was unsuccessful. The gentlemen were soon overwhelmed by the superior wielding capacity of the winged monkeys. The intruders took advantage of their flight to equip both hands and feet with tools gleaned from the laboratory. The rate of damage to my priceless equipment was growing unacceptably, and the wall of leisurely fodder between the monkeys and me was shrinking alarmingly.

It was clear that I would be required to participate. With a view to such activity I finished my glass and extricated myself from beneath the bar-billiards table; immediately there came a howl of triumph, and Mr Tribblings himself flapped into view. I snatched up a cue, and offering a brief apology to the club’s sportsmaster – one Joshua Ballhugger (briefer still when I spotted his head gaping wordlessly on a futon), snapped it down across my knee. Realising my error, I unscrewed it instead. Favouring my bruised thigh, I stood with bipartite ball potter at the ready.

We duelled for a time, Mr Tribblings and I, as I batted away his brutish implements. The nail studded thighbone went first, followed by the footful of dermis penetrating needles. Using the ancient techniques taught to me by the monks of Alermo da Quim I battered the monkey into the baise, and used the shredded cues to fire the billiards rapidly at his skull, stunning the treacherous ape.

With a drooling-level impairment in place I mounted the brutish renegade and took a firm grip of his wings. Mr Tribblings lurched beneath me as I tried to control him with my thighs squeezed tightly about his chest. Somehow he lurched into drunken flight, careening off the bookshelves and light fittings. I managed to wrench one of his wings free of its sutures and the flight ended abruptly, as the halfwinged ape crashed into a gramophone, the winding handle puncturing his jaw.

At first I thought him dead, but his angry rambling continued, accompanied by the mournful yawing of a slow-turning gramophone record. The very action of his jaw was engaging the device’s machinery, and the more enraged his denunciations the faster the handle ground round and the more manic the tune. The rest of the hybrids were easily subdued once they’d finished savaging the more elderly club members.

Mr Tribbling’s evil plan had been foiled, and the club had a new attraction: the mono-winged ape was installed in a cage on the ground floor and wound up by passers-by to produce the unholy music and accompanying spasms which so entertained them. In time Mr Tribbling’s reluctant contribution to the club’s funds outweighed the damage his creatures had wrought. He died shortly afterward from a combination of sepsis and brass poisoning. His bones (with gramophone intact) now occupy a display case in the club’s museum. He was the monkey who ground his own organ.

Captain Pigheart’s Polar Adventure

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“Gaaargh, Mick it be not brain surgery,” I spat derisively as I cheerily spun me shiny new wheel to the left. ‘Twere a lovely brass wheel, with moulded grips, arrr she were a pleasure to grasp. But perhaps ye sporty gleam had affected me thinkin’, for over the next few days the air grew overly chill and me ship frosty. Gaargh, I’d probably meant me other left (or port as Mick insists).

Twas the danger in urinatin’ over the side what tipped the lads off to the error in steerin’. I arranged me pens and flipcharts so as to diagrammatically explain that the weight o’ gold in our hull were draggin’ us down the slopion’ side of ye Earth. Now given ye circularity o’ the globe twere as well to continue on our present course. I were takin’ ye long view but in any case, twere too late now.

Ye see, it were as cold as a snowman’s seed, too cold even for Mick’s sweaty palms, and they’d frozen tight to ye wheel – our course were fixed. At least it spared me own arms from hours at the helm. Ye increasin’ly bitter weather turned him blue despite the vast merkins I’d knitted. But in tuggin’ him free his mitts snapped off at the wrist takin’ him from ‘Look – No Hands Mick’ to mere ‘No Hands Mick’. Twere a shame but we all cheered up when his fists proved ideal for puckin’ in ice hockey.

As I were about to thrust Mick’s fist between Billy’s legs and score me third goal, the Grim Bastard lurched violently, tossin’ me mates hither and thither. I hoped we’d struck land- but twere just me stern bein’ ravished by a courtin’ whale. Ye humpin’ whale’s lusty thrusts bumped us onto a sheet of ice where we lay like an ill-used walrus.

The prolonged moanin’ of ye whale were taken up by Herr Doktor Gunther’s surgical plaything, a lad he’d borrowed from a circus upon whom to expand his medical repertoire. His lobotomised lowin’ brought forth a brace o’ sea unicorns to joust for me ship’s booty. The nasal swords clashed in freezin’ spray, occasionally plowin’ into ye Grim Bastard, callin for much pluggin o’ holes. That be a risky matter, and ye lads came out with as many holes as they’d stoppered.

‘Twere then we conceived of danglin’ the howlin’ half-wit over ye bows to distract the bladed sea-beasts whilst we seized their ivory. Arrr, Mick could only toe the line and so the mooncalf plunged into the sea. Twas the divertin’ sport of bobbin’ for the lad which led the narwhals to mortally wound each other. Bravely I ordered me lads to mount the dyin’ beasts and relieve them of their horns and meat before they sank.

An ice floe be a tedious place and I were despairin’ of ever eatin’ somethin’ other than blubber. Even spicin’ it with a lime marinade only pained us with discoverin’ that it were the source o’ the whales’ lust – the knaves of ye Piratical Catalogue had chosen to pickle ye ricket-haltin’ limes in the urine of a lady whale.

For want o’ diversion and a greater share o’ supplies, I encouraged me men to wander ye ice, especially Billy No Mates. He came slidin’ back one day, with news of fat birds dressed as nuns. Yarr, that confirmed why me polar bear patrols’d been so bored. I quietly inverted me compass while reassurin’ the lads they’d now no reason to fear ye dreaded arctic hare.

The discovery of ye penguin-folk ignited a worryin’ gleam behind the tiny dark glasses upon me sawbones nose. “Ha ha ha. I haf ein plan mein Herren, first ve must capture ze flippen-flappen-fischen-birden.” Ordinarily I’d press Gunther for details, but I were tired o’ checkin’ me tackle for icicles, so I led a team o’ burly mates out upon ye ice meself. Ye ice be not designed with a peg leg in mind and it were a perilous journey.

We motivated ye penguins by puntin’ their eggs towards ye Bastard where we leaped upon ‘em and tied ‘em to ye mast. They sank into a foolish complacency once we’d stuffed their eggs back under them – the next generation were the least o’ their worries.

Gunther unveiled his new contraption with a feverish grin: “Viz zis device ve vill hollow out ze penkvin und ve vill escapen ze ice.” I weren’t followin’ entirely, but when the psychotic Teutonic asked for volunteers I took a closer peek. Gaargh, if ye can imagine a man-sized melon baller studded with more blades than a blind barber, then ye’ll understand why I volunteered me first mate, Billy No Mates.

The machine were swift in its evisceratin’: a sheet o’ frozen blood mist cascaded to the deck revealin’ a dazed penguin and a heap o’ steamin’ gore. Arr, we were suprised, ‘specially when Gunther flipped open the penguins beak to reveal Billy within. Aaargh, he also seemed a mite taken aback.

Gunther’s crypto-zoological chicanery were interestin’ but hopefully had a purpose (unlike the unfortunate incident with ye dwarves). He aimed to graft the least popular of me crew into manguins, grantin’ us aqua-mules to haul us from the ice. It seemed a tad extreme, but Gunther swore it’d be a reversible procedure and were our sole hope. After some vicious votin’ we got another five hybrid pengmen into ye water. But before we could even test ye Doktor’s thesis, black fins arose from ye waves.

There was naught we could do – the killer whales each picked up a penguin, and wolfed them down. Gunther looked oddly triumphant at ye eruptin’ foam of blood. I were not best pleased and told him so, though be begged me indulgence. I soon saw his reasonin’ – munchin’ on me mates had ensnared the orcas (I’d wondered at the cutlasses’ purpose). The enraged fish whipped us off our ice floe and back into ye ocean.

It were a noble, if excessive sacrifice that saved most of our lives. I were about to offer a few heartfelt words in memory of Billy when a flipper slapped wetly on ye gangplank. Even though Billy’s survival spoiled me eulogy I’d not the heart to throw him back for despite his fishy scent he were far less irritatin’ in his nunnish birdery. Since I’d forgot the names of our other saviours there were little else to do but celebrate our escape from ye south pole with mugs of whale beer; all the blubber turns to alcohol – or a thick floatin’ scum.