Part 8 (1/2)

”Jesus.” Carsten turned to George Moerlein, who'd watched the landing a few feet away from him. ”Every time they do that, I think the aeroplane is going to miss the deck-either that or it'll tear in half when the hook grabs it.”

His bunkmate nodded. ”I know what you mean. It looks impossible, even though we've been watching 'em for months.”

As the Wright's prop slowed from a blur to a stop, the pilot climbed out of the aeroplane. Sailors with mops and buckets dashed over and started swabbing down the deck. With oil and gasoline spilling all the time, swabbing was a more serious business than on most s.h.i.+ps.

Sam said, ”The thing I really fear is one of 'em coming in low and smas.h.i.+ng right into the stern. Hasn't happened yet, thank G.o.d.”

”Yeah, that wouldn't do anybody any good,” Moerlein agreed. ”Could happen, too, especially if somebody's coming in with his aeroplane shot to h.e.l.l and gone-or if he just makes a mistake.”

”What I hope is, we never come into range of a battles.h.i.+p's big guns,” Carsten said. ”Taking a hit is bad enough any which way-I've done that-but taking a hit here, with all the gasoline we're carrying...We'd go straight to the moon, or maybe five miles past it.”

”It'd be over in a hurry, anyhow,” his bunkmate answered. Before Sam could say he didn't find that rea.s.suring, George Moerlein went on, ”But that's one of the reasons we're carrying all these aeroplanes: to keep battlewagons from getting into gunnery range in the first place.”

Carsten stamped the flight deck, which was timber lain over steel. ”We can't be the only Navy working on aeroplane carriers.”

”I've heard tell the j.a.ps are,” Moerlein said. ”Don't know it for a fact, but I've heard it. It wouldn't surprise me.”

”Wouldn't surprise me, either, not even a little bit,” Sam said. ”I was in the Battle of the Three Navies, out west of the Sandwich Islands. Those little yellow b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are tougher than anybody ever gave 'em credit for.”

Moerlein looked sour. ”And they just walked away from the war free and clear, too. The Rebs are paying, England and France are paying, Russia's gone to h.e.l.l in a handbasket, but j.a.pan said, 'Well, all right, if n.o.body else on our side's left standing, we're done, too,' and we couldn't do anything but say, 'All right, Charlie-see you again some day.'”

”We will, too,” Carsten said. ”I was just a kid when they took the Philippines away from Spain right after the turn of the century. And now we've taken the Sandwich Islands away from England-I was there for that, aboard the Dakota Dakota. So they're looking our way, and we're looking their way, and n.o.body's sitting between us any more.”

”That'd be a fight, all right. All that ocean, aeroplanes whizzing around, us bombing them and trying to keep them from bombing us.” Moerlein got a faraway look in his eye.

So did Sam. ”h.e.l.l, if both sides have aeroplane carriers, you could fight a battle without ever seeing the other fellow's s.h.i.+ps.”

”That would be pretty strange,” Moerlein said, ”but I guess it could happen.”

”Sure it could,” Sam said. ”And you'd want to sink the other b.a.s.t.a.r.d's aeroplane carriers just as fast as you could, because if he didn't have any aeroplanes left, he couldn't stop your battles.h.i.+ps from doing whatever they wanted to do.” He stamped on the flight deck again. ”And if the aeroplane carrier is the s.h.i.+p you have to sink first, that makes the Remembrance Remembrance the most important s.h.i.+p in the whole Navy right now.” the most important s.h.i.+p in the whole Navy right now.”

For a moment, he felt almost like a prophet in the middle of a vision of the future. He also felt pleased with himself for having had the sense to figure out that aeroplanes were the coming thing, and grateful to Commander Grady for having brought him to the Remembrance Remembrance, no matter how ugly she was.

Then something else occurred to him. He hurried away. ”Where's the fire at?” George Moerlein called after him. He didn't answer, but hurried down a hatch to go below.

He guessed Grady would be checking one sponson or another and, sure enough, found him in the third one into which he poked his head. The officer was testing the elevation screw on the gun there, and talking about it in a low voice with the gunner's mate who commanded the crew for that sponson. Sam stood at attention and waited to be noticed.

Eventually, Commander Grady said, ”You'll want to make sure of the threads there, Reynolds. Good thing we're not likely to be sailing into combat any time soon.” He turned to Sam. ”What can I do for you, Carsten?”

”I've been thinking, sir,” Sam began.

A smile spread across Grady's rabbity features. ”Far be it from me to discourage such a habit. And what have you been thinking?”

”We've taken the Confederates' battles.h.i.+ps away from them, sir, and we've taken away their submersibles,” Carsten said. ”What do the agreements we've made with them say about aeroplane carriers?”

”So far as I know, they don't say anything,” Commander Grady said.

”Shouldn't they, sir?” Sam asked in some alarm. ”What if the Rebs built a whole raft of these s.h.i.+ps and-”

Grady held up a hand. ”I understand what you're saying. If the Remembrance Remembrance turns out to be as important as we think she is, then you'll be right. If she doesn't, though-” He shrugged. ”There are a lot of people in Philadelphia who think we're pouring money down a rathole.” turns out to be as important as we think she is, then you'll be right. If she doesn't, though-” He shrugged. ”There are a lot of people in Philadelphia who think we're pouring money down a rathole.”

”They're crazy,” Sam blurted.

”I think so, too, but how do you go about proving it?” Grady asked. ”We need to have something to do to prove what we're worth. In any case, I believe the answer to your question is no, as I said: if the Confederate States want to build aeroplane carriers, they are not forbidden to do so. When the agreements were framed, no one took this cla.s.s of s.h.i.+p seriously.”

”That's too bad,” Carsten said.

”I think so, too,” Grady repeated. ”Nothing I can do about it, though. Nothing you can do about it, either.”

Carsten looked southwest, in the direction of the Confederacy. ”Wonder how long it'll be before the Rebels have one of these babies.” Then he looked east. ”Wonder how long it'll be before England and France do, too.”

”It'll take the Rebs a while, and the frogs, too, I expect,” Commander Grady said. ”We're sitting on the CSA, and Kaiser Bill is sitting on France. England...I don't know about England. They didn't have the war brought home to them, not the way the Confederates and the French did. Yeah, they got hungry, and the Royal Navy finally ended up fighting out of its weight, but they weren't whipped whipped-you know what I mean?”

”Yes, sir,” Sam said.

Grady went on as if he hadn't spoken: ”And from Australia through India and Africa, they're still c.o.c.ks o' the walk. If they decide they want to get even and they find some friends...” His laugh was anything but mirthful. ”Sounds like the way we won this last war, doesn't it, Carsten? We decided we were going to get even, and we cozied up to the German Empire. I hope to G.o.d it doesn't work for them ten years down the line, or twenty, or thirty.”

”Yes, sir,” Sam said again. ”I guess we just have to do our best to keep ahead of them, that's all.” He sighed. ”I wonder where all this ends, or if it ever ends.”

”Only way I can see it ending is if we ever figure out how to blow a whole country clean off the map,” Grady said. He slapped Sam on the back. ”I don't figure that'll happen any time soon, if it ever does. We'll have work to do for as long as we want it, the two of us.”

”That'd be good, sir,” Carsten said equably. ”That's the big reason I wanted to transfer to the Remembrance Remembrance. As soon as they bombed us off Argentina, I knew aeroplanes were going to stay important for a long, long time.”

”You're a sharp bird, Carsten,” Grady said. ”I was glad to see you get that promotion at the end of '16. You're too sharp to have stayed an able seaman for as long as you did. If you were as pushy as you're sharp, you'd be an officer by now.”

”An officer? Me?” Carsten started to laugh, but Commander Grady wasn't the first person who'd told him he thought like one. He shrugged. ”I like things the way they are pretty well. I've got enough trouble telling myself what to do, let alone giving other people orders.”

Grady chuckled. ”There's more to being an officer than giving orders, though I don't suppose it looks that way to the ratings on the receiving end. I think you've got what it takes, if you want to apply yourself.”

”Really, sir?” Sam asked, and Commander Grady nodded. Sam had never aspired to anything more than chief petty officer, not even in his wildest dreams. Now he did. He'd known a few mustangs, officers who'd come up through the ranks. Doing that wasn't impossible, but it wasn't easy, either. How much did he want it? Did he want it at all? ”Have to think about that.”

Jake Featherston rubbed brilliantine into his hair, then combed a part that might have been scribed with a ruler. He looked at himself in the tiny mirror above the sink in his room. He wasn't handsome, but he didn't figure he would ever be handsome. He'd do.

He put on a clean s.h.i.+rt and a pair of pants that had been pressed in the not too impossibly distant past. Again, he didn't look as if he were about to speak before the Confederate Congress, but he didn't want to speak before the Confederate Congress, except to tell all the fat cats in there where to go. He grinned. He was going to tell some fat cats where to go today, too, but they weren't so fat as they wanted to be, nor so fat as they thought they were.

He donned a cloth workingman's cap, put his pistol on his belt, and left the room. Fewer people bothered wearing weapons on the streets in Richmond than had been true in the first desperate weeks after the Great War ended, but he was a long way from the only man sporting a pistol or carrying a Tredegar. n.o.body could be sure what would happen next, and a good many people didn't care to find out the hard way.

Featherston hurried down Seventh toward the James River. The back room in the saloon where the Freedom Party had met wasn't big enough these days, but a rented hall a couple of doors down still sufficed for their needs. After meetings, the Party veterans would repair to the saloon and drink and talk about the good old days when everyone had always stood shoulder to shoulder with everyone else.

Sometimes Jake was part of those gatherings, sometimes he wasn't. After tonight, either he would be or he wouldn't have anything to do with the Party any more. He saw no middle way-but then, he'd never been a man who looked for the middle way in anything he did.

A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the meeting hall: men in caps and straw hats crowding around the doorway, jostling to get in. They parted like the Red Sea to let Jake by. ”Tell the truth tonight, Featherston!” somebody called. ”Tell everybody the whole truth.”

”Don't you worry about that,” Jake answered. ”I don't know how to do anything else. You wait and see.”

Several people clapped their hands. But somebody said, ”You don't want to be Party chairman. You want to be king, is what you want.”

Whirling to turn on the man, Jake snapped, ”That's a G.o.dd.a.m.n lie, Bill Turley, and you know it G.o.dd.a.m.n well. What I want is for the Freedom Party to go somewhere. If it wants to go my way, fine. If it doesn't, it'll go however it goes and I'll go somewhere else. No hard feelings.”