A couple of American sailors came in not long after he did. He nodded to them. They sat down well away from him-he was an officer, after all, even if he sometimes had trouble remembering it-and ordered drinks of their own. Then a couple of more sailors came in. An Irishman stuck his nose in the door, saw all the blue uniforms, and decided to do his drinking somewhere else.

Carsten raised his finger to order another Murphy's. The tapman was pouring it for him when half a dozen more sailors walked into the pub. They too wore navy blue uniforms, but theirs were of a different cut, and their hats struck Sam's eye as odd. They were off the S135, not the O'Brien.

They eyed the Americans already there with the same wariness those Americans were showing them. Sam didn't know German rank markings any too well, but one grizzled German sure had the look of a senior petty officer. The man spoke English, of a sort: "Friends, ja?"

"Yes, friends," Carsten said, before any of the O'Brien 's men could say anything like, No, not friends.

"Gut, gut," the German said. "England, Frankreich -" He shook his head. "No, France…" He made it sound more like a man's name-Franz-than a country's, but Carsten nodded to show he got it. "England, France-so." The squarehead made a thumbs-down gesture that might have come from a Roman amphitheater.

All the Americans got that. "Yeah," one of the sailors said. "To hell with England and France, and the horse they rode in on."

The German plainly didn't know about the horse they rode in on, but the smiles from the Americans encouraged his pals and him to come in and order beers for themselves. Sam noticed the tapman took their money, where he hadn't for any of the Americans. If the Germans noticed that, too, it might cause trouble.

Picking up his pint of Murphy's, he went over and sat down by the German who knew a little English. "Hello," he said.