Poor Kevin Gull

Kevin has a problem, yet nobody can bring themselves to confront him. Kevin was brought up by fish eaters, consequently he has halitosis, which may be likened to a bucket of mackerel left in the sun for a week. None of the gulls will play with him, the starlings convened a static murmuration then discovered a flying murmuration was a better idea, anything but that odour. 

Kevin remains friendless. 

Friendless, how much do we really know about people. This is a dark story from 1972. Her Madge’s Marines were in the Med, playing wars against various other tribes of warriors. A member of our lot, let’s call him Brum, everybody called him Brum, was a nasty bit of work, mostly friendless and evil looking, rather like a Mongolian goat trader. He had a perversion, probably still has if he has survived. He was attracted to younger, possibly less aggressive members of the male of the species. As a member of a smaller section of the unit he did not live with us but took to turning up on our messdeck late at night to bother a “bit of skin” who lived two bunks down from me. Harsh words from the bloke upstairs and a face off seemed to have the desired effect. The lad was left alone.

The air conditioning on the ancient war canoe could not cope with the increasing summer temperatures. When four of us, including Skin, moved house at night to sleep on the gun sponson to the starboard side of the flight deck we were relaxed, had a can of beer each and slept. Later there was a yell and we saw a shadow slip away. It seemed Brum was up to his old tricks, he had followed us and waited. The second night, same routine. The third night he got over-confident, snuck up to a bunch of empty sleeping bags and suddenly went to the grating with a mighty thump. The four of us grabbed him and started playing “painting by numbers” on his grotty body and head; just when he thought we would let him go he was picked up and held over the foaming briney. 

There was a gutteral hissing from his swollen lips, in response he was told that if we ever, ever, saw him near Skin again he would be dropped the 80 feet to the ocean, then it would be up to him! 

Result, no Brum, sleep, cool fresh air and a happy bunch. Who knows, had we dropped him we may have saved some poor kid on the streets from his perverse behaviour, we will never know.