Tims Times

One of the crew was pronounced deaf by 2 of the officers, they had apparently deduced this fact because they claimed he did not respond to them when they spoke to him directly. The fact of the matter was that he was not deaf at all, he just hadn’t a clue what was being said to him, so he got nervous and froze. Unfortunately he froze for the same 2 guys at different instances. He also asked them to repeat what they had said, so they did but he still didn’t understand and he had a facial expression to match totally spaced out looking with a wrinkled brow and eyes darting about like goldfish in a small bowl. They of course added this to the list of evidence of deafness. But he just didn’t understand their dialect, so he would ask others to explain too scared to ask again because he thought they would shout if he asked too much, of course they would shout, they thought he was deaf!
He was a bit nervous at the best of times anyway, he got a bit of spray splashed onto his face when climbing the foremast and he thought the ship was sinking! The sun was shining and the weather was beautiful he just got a few drops of spray on his cheek, but it was enough for him to get a panic attack and he wrapped himself arms and legs around the mast and called for help on the radio, but he had the receiver volume turned down so he didn’t hear the bridge calling him back and asking what he needed help with, this time the old man witnessed the event and heard the previous damning evidence. So the mate had to go up and get him down from the mast, when he got there he started shouting at the small figure clinging to the mast (because he believed him to be deaf) the sailor of course figured he was getting a bollocking so he said nothing of course! He was hauled down like a sack of spuds, then he started bawling crying out of the shame of being manhandled in front of the whole ships compliment.
When I tried to prove that his hearing was ok, it was already too late, his detractors had already made his supposed deafness a reality. Maybe he should put in a claim for a hearing aid? What?