The petty officer spoke in German to the seamen with him. The low-voice colloquy went on for a minute or two before he switched back to English: "Most rimes, I would do this thing. Now it is better if I do not. The bargain is as I first said it is."

"Have it your way, Feldwebel," O'Donnell answered. "I said I'd make that deal, and I will." His eyes narrowed. "You mind telling me why it's better if you don't take the rum now? Just askin' out of curiosity, you understand."

"Oh, yes-curiosity," the petty officer said, as if it were a disease he'd heard of but never caught. "You have on this boat, Captain, a wireless telegraph receiver and transmitter?"

"No," O'Donnell told him. "I'd like to, but the owners won't spring for it. One of these days, maybe. How come?"

"I should not anything say," the petty officer answered, and he didn't anything say, either. Instead, he gave O'Donnell the 240 marks he'd agreed to pay. O'Donnell handed the money to Butcher, who stuck it in his pocket.

The captain of the Ripple kept on trying to get more out of the German sailor, but he didn't have any luck. Finally, in frustration, he gave up and told George Enos, "Hell with it. Give 'em their fish and we'll all go on about our business."

"Right," Enos said again. Had he got the extra ten pfennigs a kilo, he would have worked extra hard to make sure the Yorck got the finest fish he had in the hold. Some of the haddock scrod down there, the little fellows just over a pound, would melt in your mouth. When Charlie fried 'em in butter and bread crumbs-he got hungry just thinking about it.

But the young fish would also bring better prices back at the docks. He gave the Germans the bigger haddock and sole the trawl had scooped up from the bottom of the sea. They'd be good enough, and then some.

The Germans didn't raise a fuss. They were sailors, but they weren't fishermen. Their boat rode appreciably lower in the water when they cast off from the Ripple's rail and rowed back to the cruiser from which they'd come. The Yorck's crane lifted them out of the water and back on deck.