George was glad Captain Carsten gave the crews so much gunnery practice. The more time he put in as a loader, the faster he got. The more shells the twin 40mm mount threw, the better the chance it had of knocking down an enemy Swordfish or Spitfire before the airplane could perpetrate whatever atrocity its crew had in mind. Maybe even more than the other sailors in the gun crew, George liked that idea. They hadn't been attacked from the air when they couldn't shoot back. He had.

Having their own airplanes along enormously extended how far they could see. A wireless call sent the flotilla steaming south after a convoy more than a hundred miles away. The enemy freighters and their escorts would have got away if the baby flattops hadn't joined the destroyers and cruisers in the South Atlantic.

"Keep an eye peeled for subs," Swede Jorgenson warned as the Josephus Daniels picked up speed. The new gun chief added, "Be just like the limeys to have a couple traveling with the convoy just to fuck us over."

Even though the destroyer escort had its fancy new hydrophone, that struck George as good advice. He scanned the blue water for a telltale periscope. Maybe it wouldn't help, but it sure couldn't hurt. He didn't want to die the way his father had. He didn't want to die at all, but especially not that way.

Fighters and dive bombers streaked off the escort carriers. These new carriers didn't seem to have torpedo airplanes aboard. Scuttlebutt said the brass had decided they were sitting ducks, and dive bombers could do the job better.

Reaching the enemy convoy took a while. The Oahu and the Irish Sea slowed down the rest of the U.S. ships. The baby flattops were no faster than any of their predecessors. "Snails with flight decks," Jorgenson said scornfully.

"Yeah, but they're our snails with flight decks," George answered, and the crew chief grinned at him.

"Now hear this! Now hear this!" Lieutenant Zwilling said over the PA system. "Our aircraft report one enemy destroyer sinking and one on fire. The convoy is breaking up in flight. That is all." That was plenty to set sailors slapping one another on the back.

They steamed on. Then the Josephus Daniels and another destroyer escort pulled away from the ships that still stayed with the airplane carriers. "Something's going on," Jorgenson said.

"Do you think so, Sherlock?" Marco Angelucci said. The new shell-jerker laughed to take any sting from the words.

"Wish the exec or the skipper would tell us what," George said.

He'd hardly spoken before Zwilling came on the PA again. "We are in pursuit of a pair of enemy freighters that broke north from the pack of ships in the convoy. Our purpose is the capture or incapacitation of these vessels."

"Boy, the skipper wouldn't talk like that," Jorgenson said.

"No kidding," George said. "He'd say something like, 'We're after two of the bastards who're trying to get away. We'll take 'em or sink 'em.'"

The gun chief nodded. "Wonder how come the exec doesn't talk like that."

"'Cause he talks through his ass instead of his mouth?" Angelucci suggested.

When the ship swung farther east, George wondered why. Was a U.S. airplane shadowing the freighters and wirelessing their moves back to the Josephus Daniels? That was the only thing that made sense to him.

Then he let out a catamount whoop. His finger stabbed toward the horizon. "Smoke!" he yelled.

Before long, the freighter making the smoke spotted the exhaust spewing from the Josephus Daniels' funnels. The other ship sheered away, trying to run. The destroyer escort was slow for a warship, but had no trouble overhauling her. The four-incher in the forward turret boomed, sending a shot across her bow. A moment later, the Argentine flag came down from the staff at the stern. Sailors along the rail waved whatever white rags and scraps of cloth they could get their hands on.

"We've got her!" Sam Carsten's voice boomed from the PA. "We're going to put a prize crew aboard her and take her back up to the USA. Whatever she's carrying, better we have it than the damn limeys."

"A prize crew?" Jorgenson laughed out loud. "That's something right out of pirate-ship days. I wonder if the guys still get a share of what she's worth."

"Is that what they used to do?" George asked. "How do you know about that old-time stuff?"

"There's this limey writer, or I guess maybe he's an Irishman. Anyway, his name's C. S. O'Brian. He writes about fighting Napoleon like you're there. You think swabbies got it bad now, you oughta read what it was like way back when."

"Loan me one," George said, and Jorgenson nodded.

Lieutenant Zwilling came down from the bridge to choose the prize crew. A chief came with him, to serve out submachine guns to the men he picked. If the sailors on the freighter-her name was the Sol del Sud-tried getting cute, they'd be sorry.

"All old shellbacks," George remarked as the sailors crossed to the Sol del Sud.

"You noticed that, too, eh?" Jorgenson said. Now George nodded. On one level, it made sense; men who'd crossed the Equator before likely had more experience than men who'd been polliwogs only a few days earlier. But wasn't the exec taking off men who'd given him a hard time when he was getting initiated? It sure looked that way to George.

As soon as the boats came back from the captured freighter, the Josephus Daniels hurried off after the other ship she'd been assigned. "Damn lumbering scow couldn't've got far," George said.

She hadn't. Before long, smoke came over the southeastern horizon. Again, the destroyer escort had no trouble running her down. Again, a shot crashed across her bow. She was the Tierra del Fuego, by looks a near twin to the Sol del Sud, but her captain seemed more stubborn. Another shot from the four-incher thundered past her, this one just in front of her bridge. "Next one we'll hit you with!" Carsten thundered over the PA. The Tierra del Fuego struck her colors.

Lieutenant Zwilling pointed at George. "Enos, go aboard her," he snapped. The CPO handed George a tommy gun and several drums of ammo.

George said the only thing he could: "Aye aye, sir." Maybe they'd take her back to Boston. He could hope so, anyhow. But yeah, the exec was clearing the destroyer escort of the people who'd had too good a time when he suffered with the other polliwogs.

One of the rubber-breasted mermaids and King Neptune himself were also in the prize crew: the CPO held command. When George told Becker what was going on, he shrugged and said, "I bet you're right, but I don't care. Zwilling ain't as smart as he thinks he is. I bring this baby in all right, maybe I go up through the hawse hole like the skipper. Only chance I got-I sure as hell can't pass the goddamn exam. Lord knows I've tried."

When George got up on the Tierra del Fuego's deck, he eyed the sailors standing there. Would they give trouble, or were they just glad his ship hadn't sunk them? "Any of you guys speak English?" he asked.

Two men raised their hands-the skipper and a fellow with a lightning-bolt patch on his sleeve. The wireless man, George thought. "I do," the fellow said.

"Good. Tell your pals nobody's gonna hurt 'em as long as they do what we say," George said. "They'll be POWs in the USA, and they'll go home after the war." The wireless man rattled off some Spanish. A moment later, one of the sailors from the Josephus Daniels knocked him down and yelled at him, also in Spanish.

"Any of these assholes says anything with puto or chinga or maricуn in it, beat the shit out of him, 'cause he's cussin' you," the sailor said. "They ain't gonna dick around with us." He spoke in Spanish to the would-be interpreter, then came back to English: "I told him to try it again, only not to get cute this time."

A couple of men from the destroyer escort's black gang went below to look at the engines. One of them came back up shaking his head. "They're oil-burners-she'd make even more smoke if they weren't," he reported. "But they're about as old as they can be and still burn oil. Ain't no surprise she couldn't outrun us."