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“We’ll see,” Sam said. “Meanwhile, though, we’ll do it the way I said.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Zwilling couldn’t disobey an obviously legal order, no matter how much he wanted to.

Happy sailors poured ashore after the destroyer escort tied up. Sam went ashore, too, not to roister but to consult with his superiors. “We keep getting good reports about you, Carsten,” said a captain not much younger than he was.

“Sir, I deny everything,” Sam said, straight-faced.

The officers in the conference room chuckled. One of them sent up smoke signals on his pipe. The captain who’d spoken before said, “How’s the new executive officer shaping?”

“He’s brave and he’s diligent, sir.” Sam believed in getting the good out ahead of anything else. But there was more to say, and he said it: “He’s…kind of a stickler for rules and regulations, isn’t he?”

“Does that interfere with how well he does his job?” the captain asked.

“No, sir, but I had a happier ship with Pat Cooley in that slot,” Sam answered.

“Would you say he’s disqualified from command?”

“No, sir.” Sam left it right there.

He tried to, anyhow. The captain asked, “Would you be happy serving under him?”

Sam had to answer that one truthfully, no matter how little he wanted to. “No, sir,” he repeated.

One of the officers who hadn’t said anything wrote a note in a little book whose pages were held together by a spiral wire. Sam hoped he hadn’t just murdered Lieutenant Zwilling’s career. “Why not?” the captain asked.

“He’ll do everything by the book,” Sam replied. “We need the book. It’s a good thing we’ve got it. But you need to know when to throw it out, too.” He waited to see if they would contradict him. When they didn’t, he went on, “I’m afraid he doesn’t.”

The officer with the notebook wrote in it again. “Thanks for being frank with us,” he said.

“Sir, I’m not happy about it,” Sam said. “Within his limits, he’s a solid officer. He’s plenty brave-I already said that. He’s conscientious. He works hard-nobody on the ship works harder.”

“That’s what the exec is for,” said the captain who did most of the talking.

“Well, yes, sir, but over and above that,” Sam said. “He sticks his nose in everywhere-sometimes, probably, when people wish he wouldn’t. Even when somebody who does that is right all the time, ratings resent it. When he isn’t, that only makes things worse.”

“You’re saying Lieutenant Zwilling sometimes intervenes mistakenly?” the captain asked.

He wasn’t twisting Sam’s words, but he was interpreting them harshly. “It’s not too bad, sir,” Carsten said.

“It’s not too good, either, or you wouldn’t be talking about it,” the captain returned. “Will you tell me I’m wrong?”

“No, sir,” Sam said once more. Lieutenant Zwilling wouldn’t love him-he knew that. But he didn’t love his new exec, either. Pat Cooley had spoiled him.

“Anything else about your ship that we ought to know?” the captain asked.

“Nothing you don’t already know about the class, sir,” Sam answered. “She’s not fast enough to run from a fight, and she doesn’t have the guns to win one.”

That made the officer taking notes smile. “Didn’t you outfight one of the limeys’ merchant cruisers?” he said.

“Yes, sir, but only ’cause they couldn’t shoot straight,” Sam said. “If they’d hit us a couple of times, it would have been all over-the wrong way.”

“Destroyer escorts do a fine job in the roles for which they’re designed,” the captain who did most of the talking said primly.

“Yes, sir,” Carsten agreed. “For escorting convoys, for going after submarines-no problems there. But the Josephus Daniels has done a lot of things she’s not designed for, too. If she keeps doing them, her luck’ll run out one day. I know it’s a busy war. I’m not complaining-but you asked.”

“Most people would say everything was fine and let it go,” the captain remarked. “They’d be afraid of messing up their careers if they popped off.”

Sam laughed. “What have I got to worry about, sir? I’m never going to command a cruiser, let alone anything bigger. Either I stay on my ship till the war’s over or I get a real destroyer. The difference isn’t worth flabbling about. So I guess I can tell the truth if I feel like it.”

“Yond Carsten has a hard and mustang look,” the note-taking officer said. “Such men are dangerous.”

That rang a bell in Sam’s mind. He had to reach way back to figure out why. “Julius Caesar!” he exclaimed. “We did that in English the semester before I chucked school and chucked my father’s farm and joined the Navy.”

“If you still remember, you either had a really good teacher or a really bad one,” the officer said. “Which was it?”

“Miss Brewster was good,” Sam answered. “I can still quote the start of The Canterbury Tales, too… But this isn’t a literature class.”

“No,” the other officer said-wistfully? “But you’ve told us what we need to know. Why don’t you go enjoy New York City? If you can’t have a good time here, chances are you’ve got no pulse.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll do that.” Carsten got to his feet and saluted. The captain who’d done most of the talking returned the gesture. Sam left before the assembled officers changed their minds. A young lieutenant commander was waiting to go before them next. Saluting him as he went, Sam hurried out.

He flagged a cab. “Where to, Skipper?” the driver asked. He almost dropped his teeth-she was a woman, a brassy blonde somewhere around forty-five.

But why not? If she was pushing a hack, a man could do something more closely connected to the war. “Why don’t you take me to a show?” he said. “Something with singing and dancing and pretty girls in it?” He didn’t want to go to a burlesque house and watch strippers. Well, actually, he did, but he didn’t want to run into sailors from his ship when he did it. Being the skipper had a few drawbacks.

So he let the lady cab driver take him to Broadway instead. That was a longer ride and a classier destination than he’d had in mind, but what the hell. The Winter Garden was a big, fancy theater. JOSE’S HAYRIDE, the marquee said. “This’ll do it?” Sam asked as he paid the driver.

“Pal, if this doesn’t do it, you’re dead,” she answered, unconsciously echoing the officer with the notebook.

Quite a few Army and Navy men were buying tickets, which seemed encouraging. They cost a five-spot, which was either encouraging or appalling, depending on how you looked at things. A pretty usherette guided Sam to his seat.

He liked the music-Woody Butler was one of his favorites. The comic had his trademark greasepaint glasses marked on his face. He spent most of his time leering at the female lead. So did Sam. The cab driver hadn’t been kidding. Daisy June Lee had a beautiful face, legs to die for, and a balcony that outdid anything in Romeo and Juliet. By the howls and whistles from the audience, she was wreaking havoc on every man there. Sam gave forth with his share and then some.

She didn’t show as much of herself as a stripper would have, but what she did show was more worth watching. It wasn’t one of Woody Butler’s best scores, but it was better than most of what the competition put out. Besides, when Daisy June Lee was on stage the orchestra could have been playing kazoos and bazookas for all Sam cared. And even when she wasn’t, the comic with the painted-on spectacles kept him laughing.

He joined the standing ovation when the show ended. When Daisy June Lee took her bows, he hoped she would explode out of her tight top. She bowed extra low, too, as if challenging the laws of gravity. That made the applause even louder and more frantic. The top, of course, stayed in place. She grinned out at the servicemen; she knew what they wanted.