More destroyers followed the carrier at the heart of the task force. Peterson turned and peered over the Enterprise ’s stern. That pointed him more or less in the direction of Japan. What were Tojo’s boys up to? Could they really be contemplating war with the USA? Peterson still had trouble believing it. Wasn’t all their tough talk just a bluff? With the America Firsters and the other isolationists running around loose and making a big noise in the papers and on the radio, weren’t the Japs trying to scare FDR into giving them what they wanted?

“Dammit, that’s still the way it looks to me,” Peterson muttered. If the President just stood firm, Japan would pull in its horns. The Japs had a million soldiers bogged down in China, for Christ’s sake. Why would they take on another country that was bigger than they were? It made no sense.

“Prepare to land a plane!” blared from the loudspeakers, and then, “Landing a plane!”

The squat F4F Wildcat came in from astern. The landing officer stood facing it. He held out the wigwag flags so they and his arms made a straight line out from his shoulders. He dipped to the right; the Wildcat straightened up. Jim Peterson laughed. If that wasn’t Ike Greenwald coming in, he’d eat his socks. Ike always carried one wing low. The landing officer straightened and moved the flags in small circles. The fighter sped up. The landing officer dropped the flags to his sides. The plane dove for the deck.

Tires smoked as they struck. The tailhook caught an arrester wire. The pilot killed the roaring engine. The stinks of sizzling rubber and exhaust ruined the clean air for a moment. The man in the cockpit rolled back the canopy and climbed out. Sure as hell, it was Greenwald. Nobody else on the Enterprise was built quite so much like a soda straw. People said he could sleep in the barrel of a five-inch gun. That wasn’t fair, though he might have managed in an eight-incher.