V.

"About that time," said Howie. He crawled out from under the gun mount and squatted on the 01 deck. The rain came down and ran into his ears and down his neck and he watched the sun smearing the sky red over Valletta. "What is wrong, hey, Fat Clyde."

"Oh," said Fat Clyde and spat over the side. His eyes followed the white drop of spit all the way down. Howie gave up after about five minutes of silence. He went around the starboard side and down the ladder to bother Tiger Youngblood the spud coxswain who sat at the bottom of the ladder right outside the galley slicing cucumbers.

Fat Clyde yawned. It rained in his mouth, but he didn't seem to notice. He had a problem. Being an ectomorph, he was inclined to brood. He was a gunner's mate third, and normally it would be none of his business except that his rack was directly over Pappy Hod's, and since arrival in Valletta, Malta, Pappy had commenced talking to himself. Not loud; not loud enough to be heard by anyone but Fat Clyde.

Now scuttlebutt being what it is, and sailors being, under frequently sentimental and swinish exteriors, sentimental swine, Clyde knew well enough what it was about being in Malta that upset Pappy Hod. Pappy hadn't been eating anything. Normally a liberty hound, he hadn't even been over yet. Because it was usually Fat Clyde who Pappy went out and got drunk with, this was lousing up Fat Clyde's liberty.

Lazar the deck ape, who had been trying the radar gang now for two weeks, came out with a broom and started sweeping water into the drain on the port side. "I don't know why I should be doing this," he bitched conversationally. "I don't have the duty."

"You should of stayed down in first division," Fat Clyde ventured, glum. Lazar began sweeping water at Fat Clyde, who jumped out of the way and continued on down the starboard ladder. To the spud coxswain: "Give me a cucumber, hey Tiger."

"You want a cucumber," said Tiger, who was chopping up onions. "Here. I got a cucumber for you." His eyes were watering so bad he looked like a sullen boy, which is what he was.

"Slice it and put it on a plate," said Fat Clyde, "and maybe I will -"

"Here." From the galley porthole. Pappy Hod was hanging out, waving a crescent of watermelon. He spat a seed at Tiger.

That's the old Pappy Hod, thought Clyde. And he is wearing dress blues and a neckerchief.

"Get your ass in gear, Clyde," said Pappy Hod. "Liberty call any minute now."

So of course Clyde was off like a streak for the fo'c's'le and back inside of five minutes, squared away as he ever got for liberty.

"832 days," Tiger Youngblood snarled as Pappy and Clyde headed for the quarterdeck. "And I'll never make it."

The Scaffold, resting on keel blocks, was propped up on each side by a dozen wood beams a foot square which extended from the sides of the ship to the sides of the drydock. From above, the Scaffold must have looked like a great squid with wood-colored tentacles. Pappy and Clyde crossed the long brow and stood in the rain for a moment, looking at the ship. The sonar dome was shrouded in a secret tarpaulin. At the top of the mast flew the biggest American flag Captain Lych had been able to find. It would not be lowered come Evening Colors; and come true nightfall, portable spotlights would be turned on and focused on it. This was for the benefit of any Egyptian bomber pilots who might be coming in, Scaffold being the only American ship in Valletta at the moment.

On the starboard side rose a school or seminary with a clock tower, growing out of a bastion high as the surface-search radar antenna.

"High and dry," said Clyde.

"They say the Limeys are going to kidnap us," said Pappy. "And leave our ass high and dry till this is over."

"It may take longer than that anyway. Give me a cigarette. There's the generator and the screw -"

"And the barnacles." Pappy Hod was disgusted. "They will probably want to sandblast, long as she's in the yards. Even though there's a yard period in Philly coming up as soon as we get back. They'll find something for us to do, Fat Clyde."

They made their way through the Dockyard. Around them straggled most of the Scaffold's liberty section in files and bunches. Submarines too were under wraps: perhaps for secrecy, perhaps for the rain. The quitting time whistle blew, and Pappy and Clyde were caught all at once in a torrent of yardbirds: disgorged from earth, vessels and pissoirs, all heading for the gate.