'A fun-loving good will ambassador,' somebody remarked, 'is all Teledu is.' As the river crept forward sailors and yardbirds hurriedly covered it with the leaves of a few morning newspapers, left lying on the seats. Teledu's comrades applauded.
'Pappy,' Fat Clyde said, 'you intending to go out and get juiced tonight?'
'I was thinking about it,' said Pappy.
'That's what I was afraid of. Look, I know I'm out of line -'
Ho was interrupted by a burst of merriment from the back of the bus. Teledu's friend Lazar, whom Fat Clyde had last seen sweeping water off the 01 deck, had succeeded now in setting fire to the newspapers on the floor of the bus. Smoke billowed up and with a most horrible smell. Yardbirds began to mutter among themselves. 'I should of saved some,' crowed Teledu, 'to put it out with.'
'Oh God,' said Pappy. A couple-three of Teledu's fellow snipes were stomping around trying to put out the fire. The bus driver was cursing audibly.
They pulled up to the Phoenicia Hotel at last: smoke still leaking from the windows. Night had fallen. Raucous with song, the men of the Scaffold boat descended on Valletta.
Clyde and Pappy were last to get out. They apologized to the driver. Palm leaves in front of the hotel chattered in the wind. It seemed Pappy was hanging back.
'Why don't we go to a movie,' Clyde said, a little desperate. Pappy wasn't listening. They walked under an arch and into Kingsway.
'Tomorrow is Hallowe'en,' said Pappy, 'and they better put those idiots in a strait jacket.'
'They never made one to hold old Lazar. Hot damn, it's crowded in here.'
Kingsway seethed. There was this sense of containment, like a sound stage. As an indication of the military buildup in Malta since the beginning of the Suez crisis, there overflowed into the street a choppy sea of green Commando berets, laced with the white and blue of naval uniforms. The Ark Royal was in, and corvettes, and troop carriers to take the Marines to Egypt to occupy and hold.
'Now I was on an AKA during the war,' observed Pappy as they elbowed their way along Kingsway, 'and just before D-day it was like this.'
'Oh they was getting drunk in Yoko too, back during Korea,' said Clyde, defensive.
'Not like that was, or like this either. The Limeys have a way of getting drunk just before they have to go off and fight. Not like we get drunk. All we do is puke, or break furniture. But the Limeys show imagination. Listen.'
All it was, was an English ruddy-faced jarhead and his Maltese girl, standing in the entrance to a men's clothing store and looking at silk scarves. But they were singing 'People Will Say We're In Love,' from Oklahoma.
Overhead, bombers screamed away toward Egypt. On some street corners trinket-stalls were set up, and doing a peak trade in good-luck charms and Maltese lace.
'Lace,' said Fat Clyde. 'What is it about lace.'
'To make you think about a girl. Even if you don't have a girl, it's better somehow if you . . .' He trailed off. Fat Clyde didn't try to keep the subject alive.
From a Phillips Radio store to their left, news broadcasts were going full blast. Little tense knot of civilians stood around, just listening. Nearby at a newspaper kiosk, red scare headlines proclaimed BRITISH INTEND TO MOVE INTO SUEZ. 'Parliament,' said the newscaster, 'after an emergency session, issued a resolution late this afternoon calling for the engagement of airborne troops in the Suez crisis. The paratroopers, based on Cyprus and Malta, are on one-hour alert.'
'Oboy, oboy,' said Fat Clyde wearily.
'High and dry,' said Pappy Hod, 'and the only ship in the Sixth Fleet getting liberty.' All the others were off in the Eastern Mediterranean, evacuating American nationals from the Egyptian mainland. Abruptly, Pappy cut round a corner to the left. He'd gone about ten steps down the hill when he noticed Fat Clyde wasn't there.
'Where are you going,' Fat Clyde yelled from the corner.
'The Gut,' said Pappy, 'where else.'
'Oh.' Clyde came stumbling downhill. 'I figured maybe we could wander around the main drag a little. '
Pappy grinned: reached out and patted Clyde's beer belly. 'Easy there, mother Clyde,' he said. 'Old Hod is doing all right.'
I'm just trying to be helpful, Clyde thought. But: 'Yes,' he agreed, 'I am pregnant with a baby elephant. You want to see its trunk?'
Pappy guffawed and they roistered away down the hill. There is nothing like old jokes. It's a kind of stability about them: familiar ground.
Strait Street - the Gut – was as crowded as Kingsway, but more poorly lit. First familiar face they saw was Leman, the red-headed water-king, who came reeling out the swinging doors of a pub called the Four Aces, minus a white hat. Leman was a bad drunk, so Pappy and Clyde ducked down behind a patted palm in front to watch. Sure enough, Leman started searching in the gutter, bent over at a 90 degree angle. 'Rocks,' whispered Clyde. 'He always looks for rocks.' The water-king found a rock and prepared to heave it through the front window of the Four Aces. The U. S. Cavalry, in the form of one Tourneur, the ship's barber, arrived also by way of the swinging doors and grabbed Leman's arm. The two fell to the street and began wrestling around in the dust. A passing band of British Marines looked at them curiously for a moment, then went by, laughing, a little embarrassed.
'See,' said Pappy, getting philosophical. 'Richest country in the world, and we never learned how to throw a good-bye drunk like the Limeys.'
