Gazooka by Gwyn Thomas

window saw them and the door was instantly locked and barred. Gomer left the garden and picked up a rose on the way.
    The band fell once more into line. At the sight of the fresh rose and after a round of servile attendance from Cynlais, Moira had picked up her spirits and the first notes of ‘I’m One of the Nuts of Barcelona’ had a swirl of optimistic gaiety as the matadors set forth on the last lap of their journey.
    â€˜Now let’s hurry ahead and see about these Sheiks,’ said Gomer.
    We reached the centre of Trecelyn at the double. We had passed a group of bands all dressed in chintz, unstitched from looted curtains in the main, and all playing sad tunes like ‘Moonlight and Roses’, ‘Souvenirs’ and even a hymn, but those latter boys were wearing a very dark kind of chintz and from their general appearance were out on some subtle branch line of piety. Then we saw the Aberclydach Sheiks and they stopped us in our tracks. What Onllwyn Meeker had said was quite right. The grey veils worn high and seen against the dark, rather fierce type of male face common in Aberclydach, high cheekbones, eyebrows like coconut matting, was disquieting, but in a tonic sort of way. But it was their style of marching that hit the eye. They played the ‘Sheik of Araby’ very slowly and their swaying was deep and thorough. Their leader, in splendid white robes and a jet black turban about two feet deep and of a total length of cloth that must have put mourning in Aberclydach back a year, was a huge and notable rugby forward, Ritchie Reeves, who in his day had worn out nine referees and the contents of two fracture wards. The drummers also wore turbans but these were squat articles, and it was clear that Ritchie Reeves was making sure that it was only he who would present the public with a real Mahometan flourish. Gomer Gough went very close to the boys from Aberclydach and then turned to us.
    â€˜The boys between Ritchie Reeves and the drummers are not sheiks at all. They are houris, birds of paradise, a type of ethereal harlot, promised to the Arabs by Allah to compensate them for a life spent among sand and a run-down economy, but I can see three Aberclydach rodneys in that third row alone who wouldn’t compensate me for anything.’
    Teilo Dew was staring fascinated at the swaying of our rivals.
    â€˜If these boys are right,’ he said, ‘then the Middle East must be a damned sight less stable than we thought.’
    â€˜They are practically leaving their earmarks on either side,’ said Uncle Edwin. ‘They are wanting to suggest some high note of orgasm and pandering to the bodily wants of Ritchie, who has made it quite plain by the height of his hat that he is the chief sheik.’
    We looked at Ritchie. His great face was melancholy but passionate, and we could see that between his rugby-clouted brain and carrying about a stone of cloth on his head his reactions were even more muffled than usual.
    â€˜Where are the judges?’ asked Gomer, pulling a small book from his pocket.
    â€˜Over there in the open bay window of the Constitutional Club.’
    We looked up and saw the judges. Right in front was Merfyn Matlock, very broad and bronzed, and smiling down at the Aberclydach band. At his side was the veteran coalowner Mathews the Moloch, and he did not seem to be in focus at all. He was leaning on Matlock and we could believe what we had often heard about him, that he was the one coal owner who had worked seams younger than himself. Behind these two we could see Ephraim Humphries in a grey suit and looking down with a kind of hooded caution at Ritchie Reeves and the houris.
    Gomer stood squarely beneath the judges’ window, slapped the little book he was holding and shouted up in a great roar, ‘Mr Judges, an appeal, please. I’ve just seen the Aberclydach Sheiks. They are swaying like pendulums and I’m too well up in carnival law to let