Three other destroyer escorts and a light cruiser made up the flotilla that would pay a call on Baja California. Sam could have wished they had some air support. Hell, he did wish it. He’d heard that a swarm of light carriers-converted from merchantman hulls-were abuilding. He hoped like anything that was true. True or not, though, the light carriers weren’t in action yet.

He smeared zinc-oxide ointment on his nose, his cheeks, and the backs of his hands. Freckled Pat Cooley didn’t laugh at all. Sam was very blond and very fair. Even this early impression of San Diego spring was plenty to make him burn. He offered Cooley the tinfoil tube.

“No, thank you, sir,” the exec said. “I’ve got my own.” He’d start to bake just about as fast as Carsten did.

The long swells of the Pacific, swells all the way down from the Gulf of Alaska, raised the destroyer escort and then lowered her. She rolled a few degrees in the process. Here and there, a sailor ran for the rail and gave back his breakfast. Sam smiled at that. His hide was weak, but he had a strong stomach.

He took the wheel when they were out on the open sea. Feeling the whole ship not just through the soles of his feet but also through his hands was quite something. He frowned in concentration, the tip of his tongue peeping out, as he kept station, zigzagging with his companions.

“You’re doing fine, sir,” Cooley said encouragingly. “Ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” Sam watched the compass as he changed course.

“Ease it back just a little-you don’t want to overcorrect,” Cooley said, and then, “How bad are things over in the Sandwich Islands?”

“Well, they sure as hell aren’t good.” Sam did ease it back. “With no carriers over there right now, we’re in a bad way.” He remembered swimming from the mortally damaged Remembrance to the destroyer that plucked him from the warm Pacific, remembered watching the airplane carrier on which he’d served so long slide beneath the waves, and remembered the tears streaming down his face when she did.