The swabbie left aboard the pirate ship.
An old retired pirate on a very small share, left behind to mind the parrots. Half a body’s worth of man: a half-rotten peg leg, a hook, a glass eye, a scar across the face, no hair, possibly no ear, and spectacles thick as portholes.
He knows the parrots can talk. He does not care. He pushes a mop around the mess hall grumbling damn birds, always shitting everywhere, and tells them regularly that they are one missed ration away from the stew pot.
The keys to the cages hang on his belt. His dog took them off him for a bucket of sausages.
He ended the night blinded with boiling stew, waving a cleaver, firing a pistol into his own roof twice, and shouting good riddance, you dirty little dust mops at five departing birds.
Still alive. The crew showed restraint.