Argh! Avast there, mateys! Shove over and let a real seaman take the weight off his wooden legs.

Aye, legs. Lost the last one one the last voyage, the one I've just come off of. I was signed on as Ship's Spook, ya see, when we say the last bit of land disappear below the horizon. Made me some sad, it did, but I would've been sadder if I knew what was ahead fer us all.

We was in the old "Acushla Macree," out of Dingle and bound fer the low Andartic whalin' grounds. Fifteen hundred barrels we had room fer in hold, and a try works that'd boil the oil outa a old rag, it was so good. Our captain was Bully Hayes, and the first mate was an Irishman called One-Ball, and he was proud of it, too. Bein' Irish, I mean.

We were past 60 South and goin' down, a good voyage up to then, when without warnin' the ship shivered and began to toss fore and aft. The riggin' was tumblin' down from on high, the sails flutterin' away from the ship, and the captain shoutin' and screamin' at the crew. But, thinks I, this ain't no storm like any I've ever sailed through, man and boy for over three hundred years now, and I got meself to the rail to look.

Ye won't believe me, but there was two giant squids, a-tossin' the "Acushla Machree" back and forth, back and forth between 'em, like we was some kind of shuttlecock. Oh, they was doin' all sorts of tricks, too, like jumpin' out of the water and whirlin' around like a dervish, using their tennyculls like merry-go-round ride to slap the ship back to the other one. And worse, too. Some of their moves even an old salt like me found to be disgustin'.

I turned ta tell the captain when suddenly the main truck falls onto me one good leg, and I couldn't move. Under me I could hear the sounds of the ship breakin' up, and with a crack that'd have awakened Davy Jones himself, the keep broke straight in two!

With that I begged and pleaded with the crew as they rushed to launch the boats, on bended knee asking them to save me. But the paid me now heed and shoved off, leaving me to face me fate on the pitchin', yawin', deck of a boat with a broken keel which was sinkin' faster and faster each minute and me pinned to the deck.

Mateys, I don't hesitate to tell ya that I was pleading fer me life, all but praying to be spared a watery grave. And then, from far, far away over the waves, just at the last moment, came a cry that changed everything. It was One-Ball, and he was shoutin', "Ya bloody great cow! Yer already dead!" And ya know, he was right, so I left me last good leg pinned under the main truck, picked up t'other leg at The Pirate's Prosthetic Hypermart, an' came here, knowin' that none of ye would deny buyin' a poor old crippled sailor, who gave his life in the defence of his country's aims, a bit of a tot of rum, now, wouldya?