"We should have made 'em say uncle the second we caught 'em at it," another lieutenant commander said. "It would have saved us a lot of grief. Their boats gave us fits in the last war. They're liable to do worse than that if we ever have to tangle with them again."
Nobody said he was wrong. Nobody in the Navy-nobody Sam Carsten had ever heard, anyhow-would have said he was wrong. But Commander Cressy only shrugged. "No use crying over spilt milk," he said crisply. "We're stuck with the world we've got, not the one that might have been. For better or worse, the political will to clamp down tight wasn't there. If we ever do have another war, God forbid, I think we'll see Royal Navy subs-and French ones, too-refitting in Confederate harbors, and C.S. boats doing the same thing on the other side of the Atlantic." His smile bared sharp white teeth. "Makes our job a little more interesting, doesn't it, gentlemen?"
"They won't be using Bermuda or the Bahamas or Canada as bases against us, anyway," Lieutenant Commander Toohey said. "Not this time around, they won't."
"Or Newfoundland, either." Commander Cressy was relentlessly precise.
"If the Confederate States have a lot of submarines, holding on to the Bahamas could get expensive," Sam remarked. "Long haul down from Philadelphia and New York City, and every mile of it right past their coast."
A very young ensign said, "Baltimore's closer."
Cressy withered him with a glance. "A look at the map would remind you that Baltimore also lies within Chesapeake Bay. One assumes the mouth of the bay will be thoroughly mined. One also assumes the Confederates in Norfolk will not sleep through the commencement of hostilities." The ensign turned pink. He left the mess in a hurry. The exec was imperturbable. "Shall we go on discussing reasonable possibilities?"
"Even if the Confederates don't have carriers, how many land-based bombers have they got?" a lieutenant asked.
That struck Sam as a possibility altogether too reasonable. He said, "I was aboard the Dakota in 1917, when British bombers attacked her from the Argentine mainland. That wasn't much fun-and the airplanes now are a lot better than they used to be."
Commander Cressy nodded. "One reason we have carriers is to keep land-based aircraft off our fleets. Even so, though, the days of operating battleships in coastal waters may be gone for good."
The lieutenant who'd asked about land-based bombers said, "In that case, sir, why do we keep building them?"
"I am not the right person to whom to direct that particular question, Mr. Hutton," the exec replied. "I suggest you ask your Congressman, your Senators, and the Secretary of the Navy. You may be sure, I have done so." His smile was cynical. "You may also be sure, my letters have done just as much good as you would expect."
Carsten had been in the Navy his entire adult life. He understood how the top brass thought. "We got some use out of battleships in the last war," he said, "so of course we'll need them in the next one."
"Yes. Of course." But that wasn't agreement from the executive officer. It was raw sarcasm. "By that way of thinking, it's a miracle we have any carriers at all these days." Another of those frightening smiles. "But of course we know everything is exactly the way it should be in this best of all possible worlds. Don't we, gentlemen?"
No one in the officers' mess quite knew how to answer that. Sam hoped somebody in the Navy Department did.
XIV
If it had been up to Armstrong Grimes, he would have dropped out of high school as soon as he could and gone to work. He wanted everything work could give him: money, money, and, well, money. He didn't think his mother would have minded. She and Aunt Clara were keeping Granny's coffeehouse going to bring in extra cash.
Armstrong snickered and cursed at the same time. He'd never liked his aunt, and it was mutual. They were only a couple of years apart, but these days the gap seemed wide as the Grand Canyon. Clara had escaped from school, while Armstrong was still stuck in it.
Not matter what he thought, his old man was bound and determined that he get his high-school diploma. Armstrong quarreled with his father, but he'd never had the nerve to take things too far. Merle Grimes walked with a permanent limp, yes, but that was no sign of weakness. It as much as said, Don't mess with me, punk. The Confederates shot me and I kept going, so why the devil should I be afraid of you?
And so Armstrong had to endure another six months of Theodore Roosevelt High School before he could escape into the real world. He said as much one night, resentfully, over supper.
His father laughed. "Once you do graduate, you'll probably be conscripted. Two years in the Army will show you what's real, all right."
"They don't conscript everybody in a whole year-class, the way they did in your day," Armstrong said. "I've got a pretty good chance of just being able to get on with my life."
"Your country is part of your life," Merle Grimes said. "If you don't help it, why should it help you?"
"I would if we go to war or something," Armstrong said. "But now…?" He spread his hands, as if that would tell his father what he wanted instead of a green-gray uniform. Heading the list were his own apartment, his own auto, and a good-looking girlfriend the first two items would impress.
"The peacetime Army is a steady place," his father said. "The way things are these days, that counts for a lot. Who knows what'll be out there? If your grades were better…" He gave his son a dirty look.
"So I'm no greasy grind," Armstrong said, returning it with interest. "I do good enough to get by."
"Good enough to get by isn't good enough," his father insisted. As far as Armstrong was concerned, he might have been speaking Chinese.
On the way to school the next morning, Armstrong lit his first cigarette of the day. He didn't smoke all that much, because his father didn't like him doing it around the house. The first drag he took made him a little sick and gave him a little buzz, both at the same time.
He didn't pay much attention in class. He would get by, and he knew it. The teachers couldn't do anything to make him study harder, not when he would escape their clutches for good in a few months. A lot of the seniors, especially the boys, acted the same way.
More because he was a senior than for anything in particular he'd done- his football career had been decent, but no more than decent-he found himself a big man on campus. The younger kids all looked up to him. He'd had that happen before, when he'd worked his way up from first grade all the way to eighth in elementary school. As an eighth-grader, he'd been a big shot. Then, all of a sudden, he'd been nothing but a freshman at Roosevelt, and freshmen were nobodies. He'd spent the rest of his time here getting back on top.
He was on his way from math to U.S. government when he stopped so suddenly, the kid behind him bumped into him. He hardly even noticed. He'd just had a very nasty thought. Once he got out of high school, he'd fall right down to the bottom of the totem pole again. He wouldn't be a big man on campus. He'd be a kid, fighting for a break against men twice his age. How long before he got back on top again? Twenty years? Ever?
Armstrong tried to imagine twenty years. He couldn't-it was longer than he'd been alive. In twenty years, he'd be close to forty, and if forty wasn't old, what was? He'd intended to sneak another smoke in the boys' room on the way to government, but he didn't. Worrying about falling to the bottom of the totem pole had slowed him down, and he didn't want to be tardy. They still handed out swats to kids who came in late, even to seniors.
Mr. Wiedemann, the government teacher, walked with a limp almost identical to that of Armstrong's father. He wore the ribbon for a Purple Heart on his lapel, so he'd been hurt during the war, too. "We don't look at secession the way we did before 1863," he said. "Can anyone tell me why we don't?" Several hands shot into the air. Armstrong's wasn't one of them, but Wiedemann pointed at him anyway. "Grimes!"