A destroyer off on the other side of the flotilla heard, or thought she heard, a submersible lurking in the sea. She prosecuted the sub with a shower of ashcans. There was no triumphant signal showing the enemy boat-if it was an enemy boat-had gone to the bottom. Sam didn't much care. As long as the sub couldn't launch torpedoes, he stayed happy.
He began haunting the wireless shack, as he'd done aboard several other ships, he'd served. He noticed he wasn't the only one; all the officers and chiefs seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
But he was asleep in his cabin when it did. The clatter of running feet on the steel of the corridor floor woke him a split second before someone pounded on the door. 'It's open!' he called, turning on the lamp and sitting up in his narrow bed. He didn't have two more sailors right over his head, the way he did when he first put to sea.
Yeoman van Duyk burst into the cabin. 'They've gone and done it, sir!' he said, his voice cracking with excitement.
'Who? The Germans?' Sam asked around a yawn. A hot flask full of coffee stood on the steel nightstand. He grabbed for it-he didn't think he'd need to worry about sleep any more tonight. 'London?'
'Yes, sir.' Van Duyk nodded. 'And Brighton, and Norwich-all at the same time, or close enough.'
'Sweet Jesus!' Sam exclaimed. As he poured from the hot flask, he found himself wanting to improve the coffee with a slug of medicinal brandy. He didn't, not with the rating standing there. 'Did they get Churchill? Did they get the King?'
'I took this off the German wireless, sir, so they don't know,' van Duyk answered. 'No word from the BBC yet.'
'All right. Thanks.' Sam's guess was that the Prime Minister and King Edward and his family would have got out of London even before the RAF hit Hamburg. They had to know the Kaiser would land a superbomb there sooner or later. 'What else did the Germans say?'
'That they had more where those three came from, and that they were ready to knock England for a loop if that was what it took to get the limeys out of the war.'
'Jesus!' Sam said again. 'How much of this poor, sorry world's gonna be left if we keep blowing chunks of it off the map?'
'Beats me, sir,' van Duyk said. 'I better get back to the shack.' He sketched a salute and disappeared.
'And I better get my ass up to the bridge,' Sam said, even though nobody was there to hear him. He put on his shoes and jacket; he'd slept in the rest of his clothes. He'd look a little rumpled, but the world wouldn't end.
The exec had the conn when Carsten came in. 'You heard, sir?' Menefee asked.
'You bet I did,' Sam answered. 'Three at once? They must be turning those bastards out in carload lots.'
'They're lucky they didn't get one of their bombers shot down.'
'Damn right they are. I bet they snuck 'em in as part of a big raid. That way, the limeys couldn't know which machines to go after. Maybe they had fighters flying escort, too-with the Y-ranging sets they've got nowadays, you can see what you're going after even at night.'
'Makes sense.' The exec nodded. 'You've been thinking about this.'
Sam gave him a crooked grin. 'Didn't know it wasn't in the rules. But you're right-I have. I figured the Kaiser had to hit back. If I was him, how would I go about it?'
'What will England do now?' Menefee wondered.
'Depends on how many bombs she's got, I suppose,' Sam said. 'If she has more, she'll use 'em. If she doesn't…How can she go on?'
'Beats me,' Menefee said.
'Hell, if it wasn't for Churchill, I bet England would have quit already,' Sam said. 'Him and Featherston-the other side's got the stubborn so-and-sos.'
'Now we hope he's dead,' the exec said.
'Amen.' Sam and Thad Walters spoke at the same time. They looked at each other and grinned.
But Churchill wasn't dead. He went on the BBC about half an hour later. Van Duyk called Sam down to the wireless shack. The British Prime Minister was speaking from 'somewhere in the United Kingdom.' He sounded furious, too. 'If the Hun thinks we are beaten, let him think again,' he thundered. 'We shall avenge this monstrous crime. Even now, the Angel of Death unfolds his wings over a German city I do not choose to name. With weeping and repentance shall the Kaiser rue the day he chose to try conclusions with us.'
'Wow!' Sam said. 'Too bad he's not one of the good guys-he gives a hell of a speech.'
'Yes, sir.' Van Duyk turned the dial on the shortwave set. 'Sounds like the Germans are going to get hit right about now. Let's see what they have to say.'
He found the English-language German wireless. 'There is a report of what may have been a superbomb explosion between Bruges and Ghent, in Belgium,' the announcer said, only the slightest guttural accent betraying his homeland. 'One of our turbo-engined night fighters brought down a British bomber in approximately the same location. If the Angel of Death sought to spread his wings over Germany tonight, he fell short by a good many kilometers.'
Van Duyk whooped. 'Up yours, Winston!' Sam said. He hurried up to the bridge to spread the news.
'Oh, my,' Lon Menefee said. 'Well, how many more cards do the limeys have?'
'We'll find out,' Sam said. 'Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of 'As the World Goes up in Smoke,' brought to you by the Jameson Casket and Mortuary Company. Our slogan is 'You're going to die sometime-why not now?''
'Ouch!' Lieutenant Walters said.
'Lord, it's the way things look,' Carsten said wearily. 'This can't go on much longer-can it?' He sounded as if he was pleading-and he was.
'Ask Featherston. Ask Churchill,' Lieutenant Menefee said. 'They're the ones who have to quit.'
'Can't happen soon enough,' Sam said. 'It's pretty much pointless now. We know who won. We know who lost. Only thing we don't know is how many dead there are.' He paused. 'Well, maybe Churchill has enough bombs left to force a draw. Doesn't look like Featherston does.'
'I just don't want to see a bomber coming over us at thirty thousand feet, that's all,' Walters said.
'Yipes!' Ice walked up Sam's spine. 'I didn't even think of that.' He made as if to look at the sky. No CAP at night. It wouldn't be flying anywhere near so high, anyway. Who'd ever imagined you might need to? But a superbomb didn't need to score a direct hit to ruin a warship. He wanted to turn around and run for home. But he couldn't, and the Josephus Daniels steamed on.
T his is going to hurt a little.'
Michael Pound had come to hate those words, because a little always turned into a lot. He'd never imagined changing dressings on his burned legs could hurt so much. And, at that, there were plenty of guys who had it worse than he did. Some of the badly burned men-pilots and other aircrew, most of them, and a few soldiers from barrels with them-needed morphine every time they got fresh bandages. He didn't, not any more.
He missed the stuff now that he wasn't getting it, but not enough to make him think he'd turned into a junkie. It did do more against pain than whatever else they had; codeine wasn't much stronger than aspirin by comparison. He could bear what he had to live with, though. When he heard other men howling, he understood the meaning of the phrase it could be worse.
The military hospital was somewhere near Chattanooga. Formidable defenses kept snipers and auto bombs at bay. From what everybody said, holding the CSA down was proving almost as expensive as conquering the damn place had been. That wasn't good, but Pound couldn't do anything about it.
He got his Purple Heart. He got a Bronze Star to go with his Silver Star. He didn't particularly think he deserved one, but nobody asked him. He got promoted to first lieutenant, which thrilled him less than the brass who gave him a silver bar on each shoulder strap probably thought it would. And he got a letter from General Morrell. Morrell wasn't just an old acquaintance-he was a friend, despite differences in rank. And he'd been wounded, too. A letter from him really did mean something.
'You should do very well, Lieutenant,' a doctor told Pound one day. 'A lot of third-degree burns are much deeper, and impair function even when they heal well. You'll have some nasty scars, but I don't think you'll even limp.'
'Terrific,' Pound said. 'How would you like it if somebody said something like that about your legs? Especially when you were hurting like a son of a bitch while he did it?'
