'But it's not good-bye for us.' said Clyde.
'Who knows. There's revolutions in Hungary and Poland, fighting in Egypt.' Pause. 'And Jayne Mansfield is getting married.'
'She can't, she can't. She said she'd wait for me.'
They entered the Four Aces. It was early yet, and no one but a few low-tolerance drunks like Leman were causing any commotion. They sat at a table. 'Guinness stout,' said Pappy and the words fell on Clyde like a nostalgic sandbag. He wanted to say, Pappy, it is not the old days, and why didn't you stay on board the Scaffold boat, because a boring liberty is better for me than one that hurts, and this hurts more all the time.
The barmaid who brought their drinks was new: at least Clyde didn't remember her from last cruise. But one across the room, jitterbugging with one of Pappy's strikers, she'd been around. And though Paola's bar had been the Metro, further on down the street, this girl - Elisa? - knew through the barmaids' grapevine that Pappy had married one of her own. If only Clyde could keep him away from the Metropole. If only Elisa didn't spot them.
But the music stopped, she saw them, headed over. Clyde concentrated on his beer. Pappy smiled at Elisa.
'How's your wife?' she asked, of course.
'I hope she's well.'
Elisa, bless her heart, dropped it. 'You want to dance? Nobody broke your record yet. Twenty-two straight.'
Nimble Pappy was on his feet. 'Let's set a new one.'
Good, thought Clyde: good. After a while, who should come over but LtJG Johnny Contango, the Scaffold's damage-control assistant, in civvies.
'When we going to get the screw fixed, Johnny?'
Johnny because this officer had been a white hat sent to OCS, and having been then faced with the usual two alternatives - to persecute those of his former estate or to keep fraternizing and to hell with the wardroom - had chosen the latter. He had gone possibly overboard on this, at least running afoul of the Book at every turn: stealing a motorcycle in Barcelona, inciting an impromptu mass midnight swim at Fleet Landing in the Piraeus. Somehow - maybe because of Captain Lych's fondness for incorrigibles - he'd escaped court-martial.
'I am feeling more and more guilty about the screw,' said Johnny Contango. 'I have just slipped off from a stuffy do over at the British Officers' Club. You know what the big joke is? 'Let's have another drink, old boy, before we have to go to war with each other.''
'I don't get it,' said Fat Clyde.
'We voted in the Security Council with Russia and against England and France on this Suez business.'
'Pappy says the Limeys are going to kidnap us.'
'I don't know.'
'What about the screw?'
'Drink your beer, Fat Clyde.' Johnny Contango felt guilty about the mangled ship's propeller, not so much in a world-political way. It was personal guilt which, Fat Clyde suspected upset him more than he showed. He'd been OOD the midwatch old Scaffold boat had hit whatever it was - submerged wreck, oil drum - going through the Straits of Messina. Radar gang had been too busy keeping tabs on a fleet of night fishing boats who'd chosen the same route, to notice the object - if it had protruded above the surface at all. Set, and drift, and pure accident had brought them here to get a screw fixed. God knew what the Med had brought into Johnny Contango's path. The report had called it 'hostile marine life,' and there'd been much raillery since about the mysterious screw-chewing fish, but Johnny still felt it was his fault. The Navy would rather blame something alive - preferably human and with a service number - than pure accident. Fish? Mermaid? Scylla, Charybdis, wha. Who knew how many female monsters this Med harbored?
'Bwaagghh.'
'Pinguez, I'll bet,' Johnny said without looking around.
'Yup. All over his blues.' The owner had materialized and stood now truculent over Pinguez, steward's mate striker, hollering 'SP, SP,' with no results. Pinguez sat on the floor afflicted with the dry heaves.
'Poor Pinguez,' Johnny said. 'He's an early one.'
Out on the floor Pappy was up to about a dozen, and showed no signs of stopping.
'We ought to get him into a cab,' Fat Clyde said.
'Where is Baby Face.' Falange the snipe, and Pinguez's buddy. Pinguez now lay sprawled among the legs of a table, and had begun talking to himself in Filipino. A bartender approached with something dark in a glass that fizzed. Baby Face Falange, wearing as was his wont a babushka, joined the group around Pinguez. A number of British sailors looked on with interest.
'Here, you drink it,' the bartender said. Pinguez lifted his head and moved it, mouth open, toward the bartender's hand. Bartender got the message and jerked his hand away: Pinguez's shiny teeth closed on the air with a loud snap. Johnny Contango knelt by the steward.
'Andale, man,' he said gently, raising Pinguez's head. Pinguez bit him on the arm. 'Let go,' just as quiet. 'It's a Hathaway shirt, I don't want no cabron puking on it.'
'Falange!' Pinguez screamed, drawing out the a's.
'You hear that,' said Baby Face. 'That's all he has to say on the quarterdeck and my ass has had it.'
Johnny took Pinguez under the arms; Fat Clyde, more nervous, lifted his feet. They bore him to the street, found a cab, and got him off in it.
