The call came in at 0500: 'INT/brit/ is adrift and not responding. Can you go take a look?'
Sure? What else am I going to do with my life?
As I step foot on the deck, I notice that the engines are still humming. That's usually a good sign. I walk swiftly over to the hatch, peer in and bellow "Hello. Everything alright in there?"
73 eyes turn and peer at me, like some aquatic family of inbred cats. "All good mate. Can you close the hatch please?"
"Avec fucking plaisir!" As I'm resealing the hatch, I hear a quiet voice from behind me: "Squormange." then a giggle. I wheel around ready to stab someone or something with a closed multitool. A second voice, belonging to a slight young man with a failing moustache, utters "Scramming," in the same grey monotone before they both start tittering like schoolgirls.
"Are you lads trying to say 'Screaming'?" I ask.
"Squirrelminge," they reply in unison. Then Tweedle Dum pulls a pint can of Carling from his trousers, opens it, and hands it to me.
"A bit early, no? Fuck it. Thank you."
"Plenty more where that came from?"
"In your fucking drawers?"
"No, you mong. Down in the hold."
So I've been drinking less-than-chilled Carling and surfing the chans with these heathens. They're not bad folk, and it beats the hell out of saving them from themselves once or twice a week.