“Evening, uh… men,” he said, inwardly amused by his own confusion regarding how to address them. The trio began to stand and he waved them back. “Why the long faces?” They looked at him as if he were nuts.
Gilbert hopped up anyway, whipping his hat from his head. No matter how crazy he thought he was, there was no way he could answer the skipper sitting down. “Well, sir, beggin’ yer pardon, but our ship’s, well… sunk.”
“So? We’ll raise her. What’s that compared to everything else we’ve done?” Isak and Tabby both jumped up.
“But… beggin’ yer pardon too, how we gonna patch her?” Isak demanded.
Tabby suddenly blinked inspiration. “We gonna use iron from that Jap ship, ain’t we!” she exclaimed in a passable copy of her companion’s lazy drawl.
Isak stiffened. In a voice both excited and scandalized at the same time, he spoke. “Hally-looya, we’re gonna get our boilers back. .. but goddamn! Jap iron? It ain’t decent!” Catching himself, he yanked his own hat off his head and mumbled, “Sir.”
Matt laughed. “Settle down! Steel is steel. Besides, remember all that scrap we sold the Japs before the war? Maybe Amagi used to be a Packard!”
He was still laughing when he left them talking excitedly among themselves. Slowly he walked around the basin, inspecting the remains of his ship with a critical eye. Inevitably, looking at her, he became more somber. No question about it: raising and refitting the old destroyer would be a daunting task. But they had performed miracles; they could do it again. The mere fact that any of them were still alive was a miracle in itself.
He stopped when he reached the other side of the basin. The ship was farther from him now, and the exposed damage didn’t look so bad. An errant ray of the setting sun managed to blink through the jungopy
