chiefs. Grizzled old midgrade officers? That was a different story, too.
Since he couldn't do anything about it, he tried not to worry. He steered the destroyer escort to her berth in the Boston Navy Yard himself. By God, he could get the job done. As sailors on the pier caught lines and made her fast, he nodded to Lon Menefee and said, 'Well, we made it.'
'Yes, sir.' The exec nodded. 'In style, too.'
'As much as the old beast has.' Was Sam talking about the ship or himself? Even he wasn't sure.
Men who'd got leave happily hurried off the destroyer escort. A lot of them wouldn't stay in the Navy much longer. They would pick up the threads of the lives they'd led before they put on the uniform. Sam couldn't very well do that. He'd cut those threads thirty-five years before. But if they put him on the beach he'd have to find something else to do.
He wished he had any idea what.
'She's in your hands for a bit, Lon,' he said. 'I get to go talk to a board.'
'All things considered, I think I'd rather have a tooth pulled,' Menefee said judiciously. 'Matter of fact, I'm sure of it.'
'Ha! Your time will come, and soon, too.' Sam wasn't kidding. The exec was still in his twenties. He had plenty of time to climb the links in the chain of command. Carsten wished he did himself.
That was one wish he wouldn't get. At least he had sense enough to know it. He set his cap at the proper angle, left the bridge, and then left the Josephus Daniels. A commander who couldn't be much older than Lon Menefee started to salute him, then jerked his arm down. Without smiling, Sam did salute the younger man. That kind of thing happened all the time when you had more wrinkles than stripes.
Two younger but senior officers did salute him before he got to the meeting room where he supposed he would hear his fate. As was his habit when they did that, he returned the salutes with an admiral's dignity. If one of his stripes were of thick gold…If I had an admiral's pay! he thought. You couldn't get rich in the service no matter what, not if you were honest, but if you won flag rank you did pretty well for yourself.
He laughed, which made a passing sailor give him a funny look. A lieutenant's pay was nothing to speak of, but he had a fair bit of money sitting in one account or another. When had he had time to spend any of it?
When he walked in to face the board, one of the men on it was a rear admiral and two were captains, all about his age. The last fellow was also a four-striper, but of much more recent vintage, his handsome face unlined, his brown hair unfrosted with gray. He grinned, jumped to his feet, and held out a hand. 'Hello, Sam!' he said. 'How are you?'
'Mr. Cressy!' Sam exclaimed. 'Good to see you!' He shook hands with the former exec of the Remembrance. 'You're going up as fast as I thought you would, sir. Is that the ribbon for a Navy Cross?'
Dan Cressy looked embarrassed. 'I was lucky.'
'You're lucky you're alive. That's one of the ways you get a Navy Cross,' the rear admiral said. He turned back to Sam. 'Take a seat, Lieutenant Commander Carsten.'
'Lieut-' Sam blinked. 'Thank you, sir!' Two and a half stripes! He'd made it at last! Wonder filled him as he sat down. He'd climbed about as high as a mustang could hope to get. But he couldn't relax even now. The Navy might be giving him a pat on the back at the same time as it was giving him a kick in the ass. A promotion on the way out the door was anything but unheard of.
'You had yourself a busy war,' the rear admiral observed. 'Captain Cressy's told us part of the story, and your record since you got a ship of your own speaks for itself.'
'I took her where I got sent, sir,' Carsten answered. 'I did what my orders told me to do. I'm just glad we didn't get cut up too bad doing it.'
'Your attitude does you credit,' one of the senior captains said. 'Captain Cressy predicted you would tell us something like that.'
'He should talk. 'I was lucky'!' Sam glanced toward Cressy. 'No offense, sir, but you sandbag like a son of a gun.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Cressy said, deadpan. Everybody laughed.
The rear admiral returned to business. 'You had a little trouble with your previous exec, Carsten. How does Lieutenant Menefee suit you?'
'He's a fine officer, sir,' Sam said quickly-he didn't want to screw Menefee. 'I recommend him without reservation. That's the short answer. Details are in his fitness reports, but it all boils down to the same thing.'
'Short answer will do for now.' The rear admiral nodded to one of the captains, who wrote something down. The admiral's sea-gray eyes swung back to Sam. 'Where do you see yourself going from here?'
'As long as it's in the Navy, sir, I'll take a shot at whatever you want to give me,' Sam replied.
'We've heard that before,' said the captain, who was taking notes.
'Haven't we just?' the rear admiral agreed. 'I don't think the Navy's going to shrink the way it did after the last war. We've got the Japs to keep an eye on, God only knows how friendly Germany will stay, and we really are going to sit on the Confederates-and the damn Canucks-this time around. We won't leave you on the beach.'
'That's mighty good to hear, sir,' Sam said. 'Will Congress give us the money we need to do all that good stuff?'
The rear admiral glanced over to Captain Cressy. 'Well, you were right. He's plenty sharp.'
'I said so, didn't I?' Cressy returned.
'You sure did.' The flag officer gave his attention back to Sam. 'They will for this year, anyhow, because we're still running on war appropriations. What happens after that…I've never believed in borrowing trouble. Have you?'
'Only when I worry about my ship,' Sam answered.
All the senior officers sitting across from him nodded. 'There is that. Yes, indeed. There is that. You understand what command's all about, all right. Suppose we give you a choice. You can keep the Josephus Daniels and go on occupation patrol in Confederate waters. Or, if you'd rather, you can have a real destroyer out in the Sandwich Islands. I don't know what kind of duty that would be. Technically, we're still at war with the Empire of Japan, but it looks like we'll let things peter out on the status quo ante bellum, same as we did the last time around. You may end up gathering moss out there. If you go down to the Confederacy-to the South, I suppose I ought to call it, since we're going to try to hold on to it…'
'If I go down there, it won't be dull, whatever else it is,' Sam finished for him.
'Well, yes,' the rear admiral said. 'That's how it looks.'
'I'll hang on to the DE, sir,' Sam said. 'If I were Captain Cressy's age, I'd take the bigger, newer ship. It'd look spiffier in my service jacket. But I figure I can do more good keeping the Confederates in line. The Pacific war…' He shook his head. 'The supply lines are just too damn long to let either side fight a proper war out there.'
'That's how it's been so far, anyhow,' Captain Cressy said. 'If we get airplanes that can carry a superbomb from Midway, say, to the Philippines-'
'Or if they get one that can carry a superbomb from Guam to Honolulu,' the rear admiral broke in.
'Or if either side gets a bomber that can fly a superbomb off an airplane carrier,' Sam said.
'There's a cheerful thought. With these new turbos, it'll probably happen in the next few years,' the rear admiral said. 'Or else the smart boys'll make the bombs smaller, so the prop jobs we've already got can carry them. Interesting times, interesting times.' However interesting they might be, he didn't sound as if he looked forward to them.
Sam understood that, because he knew he didn't. 'Sir, how the heck is the Navy going to fight a war when one airplane with one bomb can knock out a flotilla?'
'You want the straight dope?' the rear admiral asked.
'Yes, sir!' Sam said eagerly.
'All right. The straight dope is, right now nobody has the faintest idea in the whole wide world. If you've got any hot suggestions, put 'em down in writing and send 'em to the Navy Department. They'll go into the mix-you bet your sweet ass they will.'
'The only idea I've got about a superbomb is, being under it when it goes off is a bad plan.'
'You're even with everybody else, Sam,' Captain Cressy said. 'Hell, you're ahead of some people. There are officers and civilians in Philadelphia who think the Kaiser is our buddy and the Japs don't know how to build superbombs, so why worry?'
