He might as well have been married to Lieutenant Commander Hiram Pottinger. He saw his superior nearly every waking moment. The two of them prowled through the bowels of the ship, looking for trouble they could eliminate before it got the chance to eliminate them. Every once in a while, they would find something and turn their sailors loose on it. Then they would pause and nod and sometimes shake hands. That was what they were supposed to do, and by now they were both damn good at the job.
Sam still remembered that he wanted to get in on the aviation side of things. He remembered, but nostalgically, as if thinking of a long-lost love. Years of doing the duty he was in had shaped him and scraped him till he wasn't a square peg in a round hole any more. By now, he fit the slot in which the Navy had put him. That was how things worked.
He kept right on going up to the wireless shack whenever he found the chance. Maybe that proved he was a mustang; he still had a rating's insatiable appetite for scuttlebutt. The yeomen who kept the Remembrance in touch with the wider world grinned whenever he poked his head in. They teased him about it, as much as they could tease a superior officer.
"Going to tell the limeys everything you know, sir?" one of them asked.
"Hell, no." Sam shook his head. "I'm going to save it till we get over to the Pacific. Then I'll tell it to the Japs."
They all laughed. The only thing Sam wanted to tell the Japanese was where to head in. He would gladly have helped guide them on the way, too. They'd shelled a ship he was on once and torpedoed him twice. If they hadn't sunk him, it sure as hell wasn't for lack of effort.
Before any of the yeomen could say something else slyly rude, loud, mournful music started coming out of the wireless set. "Something's up," Sam said. "What station is that?"
"German Imperial Wireless, sir," answered the man who'd been teasing him. The yeomen and Carsten looked at one another. Wilhelm II had been failing for a long time now. If he'd finally gone and failed…
A torrent of German poured from the speaker. "You picking that up, Gunther?" another yeoman asked.
"I will if you don't jog my elbow," Gunther answered. He was a big blond kid, not so fair as Sam but fair enough. Another Midwestern farm boy who'd decided to go to sea instead of spending the rest of his life walking behind a couple of horses' asses. (These days, he'd probably ride a tractor. That still wasn't Sam's idea of fun.)
"Is it the Kaiser?" Sam asked.
"Yeah. Uh, yes, sir." Gunther corrected himself. "It's him, all right. Blood clot on the lung, the wireless says. Went into a coma last night, died this morning." More music replaced the announcer's voice. This time, Sam recognized the tune: Deutschland ьber Alles. When the German anthem ended, the announcer came back on the air. "He's hailing the accession of Friedrich Wilhelm-King Friedrich Wilhelm V of Prussia and Kaiser Friedrich I of Germany," Gunther reported.
"Kaiser Bill had a hell of a run: better than fifty years," Sam said. His son and heir wouldn't match that; Friedrich Wilhelm, who'd lived so long in his father's shadow, was already close to sixty.
More German came out of the wireless. This was a different voice. Gunther said, "Uh-oh. This is the new Kaiser's mouthpiece. He says Friedrich Wilhelm's first act is to declare that he can't possibly give up anything his father won."
"Uh-oh is right," Sam said. "That means trouble with France and England and probably Russia, too." He whistled softly. "Big trouble, I think. I wonder what the hell we do now."
"Well, sir, we're already on battle alert," Gunther said practically.
"Yeah," Sam said: not the ideal reply, perhaps, for an officer and a gentleman, but one both accurate and concise.
Gunther got on the telephone to the bridge. Sam ambled out of the wireless shack, whistling tunelessly to himself. For the next little while, he would know something the skipper didn't. Of course, knowing did him no good. He couldn't bring the Remembrance, or even the damage-control parties, to a higher state of alert than they were already in.
British airplane carriers, he thought unhappily. British battleships, if they can get in close enough. British and French submersibles. French destroyers, too, I suppose. What a joy. Would Britain and France declare war on the USA, too, once they went to war with Germany, which they sure looked as if they'd do? The frogs might not. They were taking dead aim at their next-door neighbors.
The limeys? Carsten worried more about them. They owed the USA a kick in the teeth. The United States had booted them out of Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Sam couldn't see them mounting an invasion to take back Toronto. The islands out in the Atlantic? They were a different story. And to get to the islands, the British would have to get past the U.S. Navy.
With a spatter of static, the Remembrance's intercom came to life. Sam blinked. The squawkboxes didn't get used very often. "This is the captain speaking." Sam blinked again. When the intercom did come on, Captain Stein hardly ever spoke himself. That was usually the exec's job. But the skipper continued, "Men, you need to know that the German Empire has just announced that Kaiser Wilhelm II has passed away. His son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, has just become the new German Kaiser.
"Friedrich Wilhelm has formally rejected the demands France has made for the return of territory lost in the Great War. The international situation will grow more dangerous as a result of this. For the moment, we are not at war with France or Britain or anyone else." That could only mean the CSA. Sam shook his head. No, it could mean Japan and even Russia, too. Captain Stein went on, "However, we must not let ourselves be caught off guard by a sneak attack. Be more alert than ever. If in doubt about anything, let a superior know. You may save your ship. That is all." With another spatter of static, the intercom went dead.
Later, after Sam had gone back on duty, Lieutenant Commander Pottinger said, "The French and the English won't declare war on us, will they, Carsten?"
"Damned if I know, sir," Sam answered. He wondered why the devil Pottinger was asking him. The other officer had two grades on him and wore an Annapolis ring to boot. If anybody knew the answers, Pottinger should have been the man. On the other hand, though, Sam had twenty years on his superior officer. Maybe Pottinger thought that counted for something.
"We'll just have to lick 'em if they do," Pottinger said. He hadn't been old enough to see action in the Great War, but he'd seen his share in the Pacific War against the Japanese. He'd be all right.
Even though the Atlantic was rough, airplanes roared off the Remembrance's flight deck. Having a combat air patrol up could save the ship if the British or French or Confederates decided to declare war by attacking, the way the Japs had.
No doubt the cruisers in the squadron were launching their seaplanes, too. Those would range farther afield. With luck, they would spot the enemy before he got close enough to launch an airborne strike force.
Unlike Pottinger, Carsten wasn't usually the sort who borrowed trouble. Even so, he wished he hadn't decided to contemplate the meaning of the phrase with luck. It reminded him too vividly of what could happen without luck.
Day followed day. An oiler came alongside to refuel the Remembrance. Sam remembered an oiler refueling the USS Dakota just before the USA attacked Pearl Harbor and took the Sandwich Islands away from Britain. Back then, most ships had been coal-fired. Even the Dakota had burned both oil and coal. Things had changed since. He didn't think any front-line ships burned coal any more.
He was in the officers' wardroom fueling up himself-on coffee-when Commander Cressy came in looking thoroughly grim. "Oh, boy," said one of the other officers in there.