|
INDIAN OCEAN: Kenya 1979
ONE DAY IS VERY MUCH LIKE ANY OTHER at sea. They pass one by one into a gray haze of work arid chow, and wake-up calls at odd hours. This cruise was punctuated by moments in the biasing equatorial sun. I would go up to Vulture's Row each day Instead of lunch and sprawl in whatever un-shadowed section of deck was available.
In this manner I was able to determine to my satisfaction that the sun still rose, and grew huge, and eventually sank into the endless greasy swells of the Indian Ocean. In the winter off Korea even these small pleasures are denied, and the days are florescent and seemingly one. The ship had been operating in the Arabian Sea, and the air wing flying around looking at the Russians, They were content, for the most part, to hang on the hook near Socotra Island and allow us our little activities without interference, relying on their destroyer to shadow us and provide target data in case they needed to kill us. It was a long month. The last two glimpses we had of land were the shimmering towers of Singapore, and the low sand of Diego Garcia. These were fleeting and unsatisfactory. 'Eyeball Liberty* is the euphemism we use for such transitory interruptions in the constancy of the seascape. We were ready to rock and roll in Africa, to kick back and not think at all. We left our seeing-eye Russian south of the Gulf of Aden. We were tasked with a last thrust at the High Value Communist in the neighborhood. We did it in grand style. The sleek Krivak-class guided missile destroyer took off after hoisting the "Good Sailing" pennants from her signal bridge. We muttered "So long, Sucker" and headed south. The Minsk mini-aircraft carrier and her protecting group lay a few hundred nautical miles to the southeast. We steamed through the night, and first thing in the morning a Flag musing turned into a juggernaught of activity. "Wouldn't it be nice" said our Admiral, "if we could get some good pictures of the Minsk before we head in to Mombasa." Your wish is our command, Sir. Some of the Attack pukes had some range extension schemes they had been sitting on for a while, and the next thing the hapless air intelligence team knew, we were briefing an eight plane fly-by at what was formerly considered "unreasonable" distance. I'm sure there were frantic Marxists scurrying to their publications. "See, Komrade, right here it says that the American A-7 Corsair II attack jet cannot be here at all! Nor the Intruder A-6E. It is all a clever ruse of the Capitalists." It was a hair-raising recovery onboard when they got back, but we got everybody back alive, and we secured for the duration of our liberty, safe in the knowledge that we had defended Liberty, and once more confounded the Godless Commies. We arrived outside the reef at Mombasa at eight. The hook rattled the chains across the foc'sIe as it plummeted to hit the African sea bottom. Liberty fever ran rampant among the happy crew. I was flush with an extra hundred dollars from a late night poker game the night before. In the face of such omen I was confident of unparalleled outrages to come. Africa: Land of Uhuru, and Idi Amin, and a million stories, and it lay two miles outside the hanger bay! It beckoned with palm trees and white sand. The water was a vivid light azure. There was a minaret in the cluster of little white buildings. There was a line you couldn't believe to storm the accomodation ladder and swarm onto one of the little boats. We stood in line for hours. The azure sea was battering the liberty boats against the massive slab-side of the carrier. It is the most excruciating of agonies to see freedom and to be prevented from reaching it. Tempers, primarily mine, began to unravel. I saw a Commander cut in line ahead of our group and nearly laid him out. It was a clear case of ship fever. The gray walls. No smoking in the Liberty line.
Arrragh! Like Tantalus, we could see a small white boat come near the ship and then be waved away. I swore the whole operation was going to be scrubbed; it has happened. If the grim look on the Captain's face was any indication of things to come, the news was going to be bad. But no! At last a party managed to clamor onto a ship's boat. We advanced onto the very approaches to the "Acom" ladder and in good time a small boat braved the swells and came near. It drew up to the ladder and a few frail-looking ropes snaked across. The white cockleshell rose and fell about five feet with the waves. The Liberty Assistance Team in their orange kapok life-jackets began to hand the luggage across and one by one the party made the jump. I reached the bottom of the ladder and made my move. It was timed flawlessly and I scarcely injured myself at all as I sprawled headlong onto the deck. It was the deck going ashore, though, so it was all right. I found a relatively sheltered spot and began to grin. It was a small one at first but it grew like Topsy. Soon I was a grinning idiot. Barring a collision at sea, I was practically assured of seeing Africa up close and personal. I gave myself better than even odds of swimming to safety even in the direst of straits. It took about fifteen minutes to overload the boat beyond legal tolerances. The gunwales were low and everyone was standing. It was a classic set-up for capsizing, but everyone was smiling. Catastrophe would have to look hard and long to find a more willing bunch than us, going ashore after a month at sea. At last the skipper of the liberty boat waved his green golf cap and the lines were cast off.
We looked up the great gray walls covered with fist-sized rivets. The Officer of the Deck looked down on us in his whites, and the duty standers looked resentful. I imagined the other four thousand people still in line weren't exactly thrilled either. But I was in the right place, and the devil with the hindmost. We lurched out into the swells that showed whitecaps racing in across the reef. As we came across the trough the boat pitched and rolled ominously. To shoreward sat a large white oceanographic ship. "Hey, Vic, what Russian is that?" asked Robert-the-Fifth. We had Russians on the brain after our adventures in the Gulf of Aden. "Robert, that is a classic example of the treachery of the Marxists. That Russian is flying the American Flag in a cunning attempt to befuddle our trusty sailors." The ship appeared to be an survey vessel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the NOAA. "Oh. that kind of Russian." Robert didn't even have the good graces to act embarrassed. You can see the kind of material we have to work with out here. Once we got away from the Midway it began to look less like the side of a building and more like a ship of some kind. About the same time we noticed a freighter outbound on our starboard quarter. "That fellow has us on collision bearing." said Bronco. He was studying his ship-handling as a possible career move to enhance his chances for command later. He was looking at the white water around the freighter's bow. "No sweat" I said "we have the right of way." Bronco looked over at me quizzically. "Well, maybe he'll give way. But I think the law of Gross Tonnage applies here." Our boat began to jog across the trough again- we heeled over at about a twenty-five degree list. Things were interesting for a moment and the danger passed us astern by a good hundred yards. A mile ahead was the buoy that marked the channel into the harbor. To our right was the hulk of a freighter that didn't make it. The waves broke between the huge chunk of her bows and the rest of her superstructure. On the green point of land that faced us were the remains of gray rock gun emplacements. They sat incongruously on a golf course. We wallowed to port and the intensity of the waves diminished as we passed inside the reef line. It no longer appeared that we were headed for imminent destruction. I took off my sunglasses and attempted to wipe off the salt film. All I succeeded in doing was smearing the lenses. Ox was leaning over the rail and sniffing the air with the intensity of a hound on the track of a raccoon. "Smell them flowers.' It's a goddamn hot house!" God, it is good to finally smell something besides the fucking jet fuel, hot oil, and unwashed humanity. It is a lot like musk perfume: it's down-right erotic. Damn!" We saw the radar arrays of one of our tin cans tied up at the pier inside the harbor proper. I don't envy them at sea. While Ma Midway motors along in stately nonchalance the small boys are plunging and rolling. When they come alongside for underway replenishment, to take on fuel from our bunkers, you can see under their keels a quarter of the way back. But now I really lusted after their capability to drive right into port, throw over a few lines and drop the gangway. Africa, anyone? We rounded the last little spit of land, covered with green vegetation and two huge signs reading "submarine cable." We drove up to a floating dock and the lines went over. We had arrived. The only problem now was to survive the stampede off the liberty boat. The landing was right next to a ferry stop. A nice four lane road dropped down from the bluff and into the harbor. Dozens of black peddlers were hanging around selling masks, spears, and carved animals. Spears? The reality was having a hard time penetrating. Still too close to the flight deck. Ed Boyd was playing his usual roll as Beach Guard honcho, and with customary aplomb he directed us to a waiting VW microbus, the preferred method of transportation in the Third World. We stacked ten people inside and pressed our noses up against the glass. Once out of the fleet landing area the crowds got thicker as the people could smell, American dollars coming. We sniffed the entrancing odor of burning clutch as our driver hung on the tail of a recalcitrant cement truck. Claustrophobia began to rise as the fumes penetrated the passenger compartment. When it finally seemed to be too much, the truck lurched forward and we popped up over the hill.
Welcome to Kenyan traffic.
We passed the mixer in a display of motorized elan, and roared with air-cooled power through the main drag of Mombasa. The buildings were two story. They featured long covered porches to protect from the heat, and needed paint. Most seemed to date from the thirties. It seemed overgrown and colonial. It was great. Things reminded me a little of Southeast Asia; the verdant growth always a step ahead of things, but no one caring a great deal. The grass always grows back, doesn't it? The driver pulled back on the stick and we did a few barrel rolls through the rotaries. More joi du vivre than similar structures in New Jersey. We hit the built up section of town and dropped off a passenger. People walked under the long verandas, small shops were open to the air. Most of the signs were in English, but a Muslim influence was clear. Bright printed skirts and black veils on the women. A lot of Pakistanis, turbans, and big new Mercedes,
Like Thailand. The cars don't go with the scenery. The quaint old buildings jar with a new 450SL parked outside. Which is not to say that everyone owned one; but of the percentage of cars actually on the street favored the big ticket. After we dropped our rider (a black American, and I wondered what his views and experience would be), we engaged in another duel with the cement truck and came up victorious, luckily so. In a mile or so we came to the Nyalli Bridge, the one-time pride and current abomination of Mombassa. In structure the thing resembled one of the old bridges in West Virginia; silver painted steel girders and end-to-end plank paving. Here they had to build with the tide in mind, so the center span rose and fell in the ceaseless rhythm of the ocean. Which lead to an interesting situation. The buses had grown but the bridge hadn't.
The metal luggage racks wouldn't fit four times a day. I had been wondering why theurban behemoths all had a squashed look to them. No sweat. The "carry on" spirit of the Kenyans was amazing. Our driver handed a few shillings to the toll collector and off we rolled. When someone breaks down things are thrown utterly into confusion.
This crossing passed without event. Once on the other side of the estuary we really flew. The horn is as vital a piece of driving gear as it is in Korea. The pedestrians don't flinch as some madman screams by at about a hundred clicks, honking madly. We passed out of the developed area in a hurry and came into a district of fine new homes. We screamed past Jomo Kenyatta boulevard and broke hard into a ninety degree bend. Four wheel drift all the way, a near side swipe, and over the palm trees we saw the signs advertising the Nyalli Beach Hotel. A last jog into the Hotel grounds and we came to the guard shack and a long cross bar across the access. The bored guard hoisted it up and we passed on the fly. We arrived in state under the white portico. Bellhops waited eagerly for our luggage, but we were traveling light. I had my Foreign Corespondent's suit, one pair of socks, cut-offs, and a tee-shirt. I was ready for action, danger and/or excitement. But above all I was ready for a drink. "Reservations, Sir?" "Well, er, ah, not exactly. Do you have a double?" "I'm sorry. Sir. We have no rooms tonight." One becomes accustomed to the vagaries of traveling with 4300 intimate friends. I arraigned to occupy the softest part of Bronco's floor and surrendered myself to the Oblivion Express. ******************** Well, cold beers were first. Tusker Lagers in green bottles. Tusker Ale in brown bottles. Served with chicken broiled on kabob hanging from a hook over a black carved plate with rice and salad. The food was fabulous, but the alcohol was supreme. I shifted to gin and tonics at the pool. It was a swell set up. The pool was Olympic, the sun was tropical, the palms danced above us in the monsoon wind. Over the wall was a lawn with white lounge chairs scattered around. Several had bronzed European women in bikinis sprawled on them.
The scenery was outstanding. One particular lady (Spanish, by consensus) was obviously part of a conspiracy to drive the airwing mad. She wore a black John Player string bikini, high heels that pulled her delicious buns up tight, and mysterious sunglasses.
Behind her, if one was able to break lock, was a brilliant white sand beach, blue water and that frieglLer on the reef. Picturesque? Shit! We couldn't imagine paying the bucks to have that ship driven up and scuttled in just the right position so it was perfectly framed by the palms. Quite the hotel. A little path ran from the pool down through the thicket of lounge chairs to the beach front restaurant. It was open to the breeze, dark and elegant.
Well laid out. It even had Marxists.
We were strolling down to the beach when we saw a party of stocky individuals drinking beer and soaking up rays. I was wearing my cut-offs and an industrial strength bhat chain from Thailand. I felt instant lockup from the Russian eyes. One of them raised his glass and used what might have been his only English, "Cheers!" he said.
"How ya doin'" I responded and tipped my beer to them. Real intercultural communication. I had to wonder what their rank was; it was evident that it they were the masters or the political officers from the intelligence collection ships in the harbor that had been following us around. It certainly wasn't the happy crew of one of one of the ships. Not so with our egalitarian system. I found out later that one of our third class petty officers bumped the Air Wing Commander out of his room reservation because the CAG was late getting off the ship. The joys of democracy. Freedom, even in the military, is a more valuable commodity than you would think. When the Russkies pull into port the enlisted guys get to go ashore with a political officer. No vodka or pussy for the trusty Komerades, It would be enough to drive an American bonkers. When we are ashore the sky is virtually the limit. And thank God. When we hit the beach I began to realize why the hotel had guards at the gate. They had them on the Hotel beach, too. From the prices you pay for everything it is hard to believe that the annual income is a couple hundred dollars. The tourist is fully insulated from the reality. We strolled out of the private area and within minutes we were surrounded by some enterprising vendors.
They had the same curios as every other place in the country. At astonishing markups. The only difference that was evident from the Fleet Landing was the fact that these guys were also selling reefer. Ah, the sweet romance of south equatorial Africa!
We returned to the safe enclave of the pool and watched the Spanish lady walk around. Best show in over a month. Frank was looking at the elephant he had bought. I was looking at the four gin and tonics I bought. Finally the lady slipped on a black robe and the show was over. We adjourned to the balcony of Bronco's room and watched a spectacular sunset. The only thing unusual about it was that the sun was sinking at our backs.
Bronco marveled at it, because as a Californian it was 180-degrees out of phase. I explained to him about the "Green Berets" scene that had John Wayne walking down the beach in Vietnam with the sun sinking in the West. All depends on how you look at things.
This evening the clouds turned pink, the wreck lit up, the sky was blue, and a full moon was hanging over the whole event. The clouds were swirled by the wind into fantastic shapes. When it got dark it was time to don my suit, have more cocktails, and head down to the beach for dinner. The breeze was cool and the sound of the rustling palms was not at all like the sound of catapults or arresting gear. It was great.
******************* When we dined it was very drunk out. The surf roared and the breeze blew briskly through the open windows next to our table. We watched the crabs who had taken charge of the beach in the absence of the guests. We were warned not to stray from the lighted areas after dark. It was just one of several things that tugged slightly at the back of your mind to make you realize that you were in a land where the Mau-Mau might include the distinguished headwaiter, or the taxi driver, or virtually anyone you met. No one talks about it very much. Uhuru is great, but that bloody slice of history when the colonial age died in East Africa has been neatly excised, at least for tourist consumption.
Much has changed since the old days. No hunting is allowed anymore.
I had naively assumed I could get a skin of some kind, perhaps a nice zebra for the wall back home, but it was not to be. Perhaps a good thing. I have always felt that most animals were happier on the hoof. Spears and a nice shield, though, were a possibility until the ship's XO banned them. I suppose he didn't want the crew bringing on a few thousand lethal. weapons. In light of the bad news that was spreading like wildfire it was probably a good thing for all those concerned. All the cocktails were good with dinner, as were both varieties of the house wines. The crabs were a real show. We chased them for a while after dinner and were not attacked by guerillas, of either kind. A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC THE next morning the word was out. Australia was cancelled. Some damned fool in the National Command Authority took it in his head that the deteriorating situation in the Gulf of Aden required our presence more than the fair ladies of Perth. An obvious case of misplaced priorities. The gloom was thick enough to stop a Land Rover. We now had to gird our loins for another thirty days on the bounding main. And in the same place, talking about Oman and Socotra Island, and the various flavors of people who infest the blasted desert of the immediate neighborhood.
I suppose we had done too good a job of impressing the Saudis when they came out to see our 35 year old aircraft carrier. The immediate reaction was that there was absolutely no reason to conserve anything in Africa: neither money, sleep, or precious bodily fluids. Jambo and I immediately booked passage on the celebrated Night Train to Nairobi, with reservations at the legendary New Stanley Hotel, and return passage by first Class plane tickets. Jambo got his name from the Swahili word for "Hello," since that is what he was doing with his toothy grin and handlebar mustache. He was convinced the babes needed him, and I think he might have been right.
Once that large sum of shillings had been lifted from our wallets, it left nothing to do but watch the rain, the girl from Spain, and the gin and tonics on the plain. No pain was felt as we drank by the pool watching the rain drench the hotel grounds. The Spanish girl did not put her robe back on, and there were six Marines, and elements of three squadrons and two departments watched her throw darts. It was delicious to do nothing at all. All we had to do was kill time and watch the enormous spiders walk around there parachute sized webs. Quite a rude awakening for many a sertoi drinker. One guy looked up from his drink and saw one of the monsters crouched on the window behind the Israr. He jumped about a foot very much like I did when I saw the huge pink snakes slithering over the sink that morning.
The beauty of the Night Train was that it did no t leave Mombassa station till 1900. We were fabulously toasted by the time it came to pack and leave for the station. We passed the last moments getting smashed with some Brits who flew the 707s of Pelican Airways into Rwanda. A fascinating bunch of people. One of the engineers had just returned from taking a ppice of the hydraulic system down to the local garage to have some emergency repairs done to it. Perhaps not to Royal Aviation standards, but it would get them airborne for their two hops the next day. There are no roads to the little state of Rwanda, and everything from matches to petroleum must be flown in.
There is money to be made in a place where the gas lines are two days long. Also in ferrying bridges and military gear and weapons into little wars in Uganda. But that is a very different story indeed.
Much of what they said was just fantastic enough to be true. Tales of American and British mercenaries leading Tanzanian teams against Idl's troops. A war that contrary to the Western Media was very much still on. That particular morning the headlines of the Nation read that 50 civilians had been slaughtered on a train trying to get out og the north. Many Ugandan refugees in Kenya itself, and the Nation decried the loss of tourism entailed by the bad P.R.
All too soon our wrist watches chimed that it was time to be on our way. We cruised out-of the hotel and discovered the rain had let up. We negotiated a fare down to the rail station. It was outrageous; they wanted five shillings a kilometer, and it seemed like ever; place you wanted to go was about fifty kilometers away. The hell with it, we said. After all we were headed for action and excitement. We agreed to the 65-hilling tariff and off we bombed in the back of a red diesel Mercedes, honking like a wild beast in search of its mate.
We scared pedestrians for about twenty minutes and roared up to a wrought iron covered archway in front of a ramshackle white building. We hopped out, paid off our bandit, and walked up to the gate. We were surrounded by beggars, hangers-on, and fellow travelers. I had a bad feeling for a moment, but it vanished the moment the kind black man next to the waved us through. "Don't worry bout your tickets. You show 'em on train. Come on ahead." He smiled and nodded as we walked past him into another era. The train waited on the siding next to a long platform of old wood and iron-supported roof. Cracked cement was under our feet. The veg-etation gave off a delicious perfume, and the wet dirt and dark people scattered along the platform gave me a flash to Bogart and a hundred Hollywood sets, all beckoning towards mystery and intrigue.
What I flashed on about a second afterwards was the little open-air bar halfway down the platform, and it was there we adjourned to discuss the adventure to come. We ordered Tusker beers and scoped the European women who were grouped at the end of the counter. Only one guy with them. The situation was calling for pandemonium on the part of two adventure-bound sailors. We drank and ogled till it was nearly time to depart. We staggered out to the train and found our compartment. It was huge; a big vinyl bench and another ready to fold down above. We were almost settled when I raced from the train to grab just a few more beers. When I got back Jim was standing outside the car checking the situation. We stood in the moist darkness and started to laugh. There were dozens of women on the train. It was better than the dream itself.....while we in that place a black man with an erect dignity came up to us. I have been panhandled all over the world but this man had them all beat. "Good evening, gentlemen." His dark face was indistinct in the darkness. "I hate to approach you in this fashion, but as it happens I am far from my home, and I am defeated. I have not the money to travel and I was hoping you could find it in you to help me" He spoke in curious precise English. His use of the word 'defeated' knocked me out. I dug out all the pennies and shilling pieces in my pocket and handed them over. I have never been so easily separated from my money. It just seemed like the tithe one had to pay for the journey.
They turned the power on in the train and the compartment lights began to glow softly. We climbed aboard and hung out the window with everyone else. Good-byes were exchanged up and down the line. At last, and with virtually no warning, the train started to creep up the track. We passed out of the lighted area and watched the children who were lined along the roadbed to watch the train go by. We curved out of the switching yard and passed through an area of coffee warehouses. I went back into our compartment and watched out the other window. Jim demonstrated how to turn on the fan. I played with the table-cum-sink. I drank more of my beer. The porter came by and brought down the upper bunk with a twist of a cold chisel. It was an old train; well kept up, but it had obviously been in service for some time. Jambo left to explore the train. I watched a refinery slide by to our right. The flame from the excess tower lit the night. It was visible for miles. We passed quickly out into an area of brush. I soaked it all in. We would be passing by Mount Kilimanjaro in about six hours. Jambo reported many more women on the train. Things were looking up. The Porter stopped by again and inquired as to whether we would desire the first or second seating for dinner. I had a handle on the situation from my old Amtrak days; I asked for the second seating. The waiters would be in less of a hurry to get us cleared out. It was delicious to sit and drink coffee and look at the people. In the meantime I had another beer.
At six-forty five we heard musical chimes advancing down the passageway. It was the porter with four tubular singing bells. He banged them with a wooden mallet and it was music. It had a syncopated beat and a lilt that belied the four notes. His music grew loud as he passed the car and diminished as he moved forward. The first sitting filed dutifully aft. Among them were two very attractive European women. I caught only the long red skirt in detail, but it was intriguing. Once, as I was packing to leave on an extended train trip my mother inquired as to whether I was taking any good clothes. I looked at her quizzically; I was still heavily into the blue jeans mode or all purpose apparel. She looked at me with a smile. "You never know who you might meet on the train," she said. Well, I can testify that the only people you meet on Amtrak are retirees, hippies and sexual degenerates. But she was harking back to an era when you actually might meet an elegant someone on the night coach to New York. I had a feeling we had stumbled into the same era lingering on in Africa. Pity we hadn't selected the first sitting, I thought.
We explored more of the train during the wait for chow. I continued my world travels with a trip to the head to off load processed beer. Jim lurked the corridors for unattached women. My journey was successful, his somewhat less so. At length the musical porter made his rounds again and we headed for victuals. The restaurant car was worth the price of admission alone. White ceiling, dark wood walls. Neat table settings. Tables for two on the left hand side of the aisle, parties of four on the right. We were seated with two African gentlemen. In the rear sat two older Americans, who Jambo already knew everyone on the train and all their stories. He informed me they were two oceanographers from the NOAA research ship in the harbor. We did not talk to the Africans next to us. They appeared very demanding of the service. We of course were too drunk to care, but keeping our ugly American masks off for use at a later date. I was picking up some very weird vibes from therm. There was a gentleman in a camouflage bush jacket with short cropped hair who kept giving me a fish eye. I hadn't defiled anyone in his family, to my knowledge,, so that left a series of possibilities. It was either political or racial, and I wasn't sure that the two things weren't the same thing in this neck of the veldt. Remember, there is a war going on in Uganda. Kenya is a member of the Organization of African Unity, of which not all members have the enlightened policy of racial tolerance exhibited by the Kenyan government. I kept getting a mental picture of the British overlords sitting in the very same car, doing all the great colonial things we have come to hate in these late decades of Uhuru. And seeing these same masters blown to pieces around the smoking wreckage of a Land Rover in 1960. Maybe I was just projecting my American racism on a situation I couldn't understand. Any time you are outnumbered like this at home you feel uneasy. Here it was of course the natural run of things. I had found most of the Kenyans very friendly but still there was a nagging feeling..... The service was first rate. We were catered to by a very dark man with a head shaved smooth as a bowling ball. His massive shoulders and neck erupted out of the white starched mess jacket he wore. The collar was vast and his head sat upon it like an eight ball on a white tablecloth. His movements were graceful. I had the feeling I should take what he served me. We started with a fish course, very delicate, followed by a lamb curry. Our table mates were most demanding. Did we get better service because we were on the aisle? Tough question. I just enjoyed the food. The rich Kenyan coffee was superb.
We lingered in the wood paneled luxury after the rest of the diners began to file out. We asked if it would be all right if we had a drink after dinner. We were assured that it would. The porters began their sitting and Jim and I moved to a clear table to drink on. We were almost immediately joined by the two oceanographers. They were also bombed. We had a splendid conversation as we piled up more of the little airline bottles of gin. One was a grandmother (speaking naturally of the oceanographers) and the other was a weather-beaten gent from Alabama who looked remarkably like Bear Bryant. We talked shop, and travels. Jim and I emphasized the travails of Carrier Aviation.
They emphasized the joys of overtime for sea duty. I admitted they had something there. What they also had was a bottle of vodka burning a hole in their suitcase back in the compartment. We decided to go into close session with it and hope for a view of Kilimanjaro by the moon-light. No small amount of urging was required once we found that immediately adjoining their compartment was the one occupied by our mysterious European ladies. The only note that clashed was the dude in the camouflage jacket who continued to eyeball us through our impromptu party.
I dunno. Maybe they keep Americans in a cage where he comes from. |