harbor. The Irish had laid on a spectacular welcome for the destroyer with the fortunately Hibernian name, with fireboats shooting streams of water high into the air. On the shore, a brass band in fancy green uniforms blared away. Schoolchildren had the day off. Some of them waved American flags, others the orange, white, and green banner of the Republic of Ireland-which, with U.S. help, had finally gained control over the whole island.
From his station at the forward four-inch gun, Ensign Sam Carsten grinned at the celebration. He'd seen the like before, in Dublin. He was a tall, muscular, very blond man who burned whenever the sun came out, no matter how feebly. A cloudy day in Irish late winter suited him down to the ground. He didn't have to worry about smearing zinc-oxide ointment and other things that didn't work onto his poor, abused hide, not for a while he didn't.
He turned to the petty officer who was his number two at the gun. 'They wouldn't have been so friendly if we'd come in while the limeys were still running this place, eh, Hirskowitz?'
'You're right about that, sir.' Nathan Hirskowitz was a dour Jew from New York City, as dark as Carsten was fair. He had swarthy skin, brown eyes, and a blue-black stubble he had to shave twice a day.
Getting called sir still bemused Carsten. He was a mustang, up through the ranks; he'd spent going on twenty years working his way up from ordinary seaman. If the officer in charge of the gun he'd served on an aeroplane carrier hadn't encouraged him, he didn't think he would ever have had the nerve to take the qualifying examination. He wished he were still aboard the Remembrance; naval aviation fascinated him, even if he was a gunnery man first. But the carrier hadn't had any slots for a new-minted ensign, and so…
'Matter of fact, they'd've tried to blow our heads off,' Sam said. Hirskowitz nodded. Carsten scanned the harbor. Lots of fishing boats, some merchant steamers, a couple of old U.S. destroyers now flying the Irish flag, and… He stiffened, then pointed. 'We've got company. Nobody told me we were going to have company.'
Hirskowitz let out a disdainful sniff. 'You think they're going to tell you things you need to know just because you need to know them?'
The S135 was a German destroyer, a little smaller than the O'Brien, mounting three guns rather than four. The German naval ensign fluttered from her stern: a busy banner, with the black Hohenzollern eagle in a white circle at the center of a black cross on a white field. In the canton, where the stars went on an American flag, was a small version of the German national banner: a black Maltese cross on horizontal stripes of black, white, and red. As the O'Brien edged toward a quay, the S135 dipped her flag in salute. A moment later, the American ship returned the compliment.
'You see? They're allies,' Nathan Hirskowitz said.
In a different tone of voice, that would have sounded light, cheery, optimistic-all words noticeably not suited to the petty officer's temper. As things were, Hirskowitz packed a world of doubt and menace into four words.
'Yeah.' Carsten did his best to match him in one. Without a doubt, the United States and the German Empire were the two strongest nations in the world these days. What was in doubt was which of them was stronger. Officially, everything remained as it had been when they joined together to put Britain and France and the CSA in the shade. Unofficially…
'If our boys go drinking and their boys go drinking, there's liable to be trouble,' Carsten said.
'Probably.' Hirskowitz sounded as if he looked forward to it. After making a fist and looking at it in surprise- what was such a thing doing on the end of his arm? — he went on, 'If there is trouble, they'll be sorry for it.'
'Yeah,' Sam Carsten said again. For one thing, the O'Brien had a bigger crew than the German destroyer. For another, winning the Great War had made him certain the USA could win any fight. He shook his head in bemusement. That was certainly a new attitude for an American to take. After losing the War of Secession and getting humiliated in the Second Mexican War, Americans had come to have a lot of self-doubt in their character. Amazing what victory can do, he thought.
He peered toward the S135. By the polished way the sailors over there went about their business, they'd never heard of self-doubt. And why should they have? Under Bismarck and under Kaiser Bill, Germany had gone from triumph to triumph. Victories over Denmark and Austria and France let her unite as a single kingdom. And victory in the Great War left her a colossus bestriding Europe in almost the same way the USA bestrode North America.
Sailors aboard the O'Brien threw lines to waiting longshoremen, who made the destroyer fast to the quay. 'Welcome!' one of the longshoremen called in a musical brogue. 'I'll be glad to buy some of you boys a pint of Guinness, that I will.'
'What's Guinness?' Hirskowitz asked Carsten.
'It's what they make in Ireland instead of beer,' Sam said helpfully. 'It's black as fuel oil, and almost as thick. Tastes kind of burnt till you get used to it. After that, it's not so bad.'
'Oh.' Hirskowitz weighed that. 'Well, I'll see. They make real beer, too?'
'Some. And whiskey. Got some good whiskey the last couple of times I was here.'
'When was that, sir?'
'Once during the war,' Carsten answered. 'We were running guns to the micks to help 'em give the limeys hell. They paid us back in booze.' He smacked his lips at the memory. 'And then again in Remembrance afterwards, when we were helping the Republic put down the limeys and their pals up in the north.'
The captain of the O'Brien, an improbably young lieutenant commander named Marsden, assembled the crew on the foredeck and said, 'I'm pleased to grant you men liberty-this is a friendly port, and everybody has gone out of his way to make sure we're welcome. I know you'll want to drink a little and have a good time.'
Sailors nudged one another and grinned. Somebody behind Sam said, 'Skipper's all right, ain't he?' Carsten frowned. He knew boys would be boys, too, but that didn't mean an officer was supposed to encourage them. He wouldn't have done that as a petty officer, and he wouldn't do it now.
But then Marsden stiffened and seemed to grow taller. His voice went hard as armor plate as he continued, 'Having a good time doesn't mean brawling. It especially doesn't mean brawling with the Kaiser's sailors. We're on the same side, us and the Germans. Anybody who's stupid enough to quarrel with them will have the book thrown at him, and that's a promise. Everybody understand?'
'Yes, sir!' the sailors chorused.
'What do you say, then?'
'Aye aye, sir!'
'Good.' Lieutenant Commander Marsden's smile showed sharp teeth. 'Because you'd better. Dismissed!'
Sam Carsten didn't get to go into Cork for a couple of days. He was less than impressed when he did. It wasn't a very big city, and it was grimy with coal smoke. And he almost got killed the first two or three times he tried to cross the street. Like their former English overlords, the Irish drove on the wrong side of the road. Looking right didn't help if a wagon was bearing down on you from the left.
Before long, Carsten discovered he'd given Nathan Hirskowitz at least half a bum steer. Along with the swarms of GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU! signs, pubs hereabouts also extolled the virtues of a local stout called Murphy's. Sam strolled into one and, in the spirit of experiment, ordered a pint of the local stuff. He'd changed a little money, but the tapman shoved his sixpence back across the bar at him. 'You're one o' them Yanks,' he said. 'Your money's no good here.'
'Thanks very much,' Carsten said.
'My pleasure, sir, that it is.' The fellow left a little more than an inch of creamy head on the pint, and drew a shamrock in the thick froth with the drippings from the tap. Catching Sam's eye on him, he smiled sheepishly. 'Just showing off a bit.' Sam smiled back; he'd seen the same stunt and heard the same line in Dublin. Every tapman in the country probably used it on strangers. This one slid Sam the glass. 'Enjoy it, now.'
'I bet I will.' Carsten took a sip. The tapman waited expectantly. Sam smiled and said, 'That's mighty good.' But in truth, he couldn't have told Murphy's from Guinness to save his life.
A couple of American sailors came in not long after he did. He nodded to them. They sat down well away from him-he was an officer, after all, even if he sometimes had trouble remembering it-and ordered drinks of their own. Then a couple of more sailors came in. An Irishman stuck his nose in the door, saw all the blue uniforms, and decided to do his drinking somewhere else.
Carsten raised his finger to order another Murphy's. The tapman was pouring it for him when half a dozen more sailors walked into the pub. They too wore navy blue uniforms, but theirs were of a different cut, and their hats struck Sam's eye as odd. They were off the S135, not the O'Brien.
They eyed the Americans already there with the same wariness those Americans were showing them. Sam didn't know German rank markings any too well, but one grizzled German sure had the look of a senior petty officer.
