“The price being six hundred American dollars,” I corrected him as the mate went off to fetch the checks.

“You mean seven hundred?”

“No, I mean six hundred.”

“You mean six hundred and fifty?”

“I mean six hundred.”

“I’m sure you do,” said Gallogherm. “Then, of course” — he pinched his nostrils — “there’s the large and fragrant matter of that sewage you got in tow.”

“Smells like an Englishman,” said Mulcanny.

I knew exactly how to bamboozle them. “Actually, Commander, it’s the dead and rotting carcass of God Almighty.”

“The what?” said Mulcanny.

“You’ve a scandalous sense of humor,” said Gallogherm, more amused than offended.

“The Catholic God or the Protestant?” asked Mulcanny.

“Teddy, lad, can’t you recognize a joke when you hear one?” Gallogherm gave me a conspiratorial wink. “So, what we’ve got here is an ambitious sea captain who’s gone and converted his supertanker to a free-lance garbage scow, am I right? And just where might this ambitious captain be intendin’ to make his dump?”

“Way up north. Svalbard.”

Haycox returned in time to hear Gallogherm say, “In any event, it’s your Solid Waste Right o’ Passage we’ll be needin’ to see.”

“Don’t overplay your hand, Commander.”

“Solid Waste Rights o’ Passage normally run six hundred American dollars, but this week they be goin’ for a mere five.”

“No, this week they’re going for a mere four. What’s more, if you two pirates don’t stop jerking us around, I guarantee it won’t be long before this scam of yours ends up on page one of the Irish Times”

“Don’t you presume to be judgin’ me, Captain. You’ve no notion of what I’ve seen in this life. Ireland’s a nation at war. You’ve no notion of what I’ve seen.”

Grimly I signed and recorded $1,000 worth of travelers’ checks. “Here’s your lousy toll,” I said, greasing Gallogherm’s palm.

“A pleasure it’s been to do business with you.”

“Now get the fuck off my ship.”

At 1600, Follingsbee and Pindar appeared with the groceries. If you factor in Gallogherm’s shakedown money, each orange cost us about $1.25, and the rest was equally outrageous. At least it’s quality stuff, Popeye — juicy yams, crisp cabbages, robust Irish potatoes. You’d envy us our spinach.

Midnight now. A choppy beam sea. Ursa Minor high above. Before us lie the Faeroes, 80 miles distant as the petrel flies, and then it’s open water all the way to Svalbard. Rafferty was just on the intercom, telling me the forward searchlight has picked out “an iceberg shaped like the Paramount Pictures logo.”

We’re steaming for the frigid Norwegian Sea, trimmed with blood, all ahead full, and I’m feeling like a master again.

Beer mug in hand, Myron Kovitsky shuffled up to the piano stool, sat down, and, pressing his Jimmy Durante nose in place, began pounding the keys. He scratched his schnozzola and raised his gravel voice, singing to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.”

We was fly in’ in our bombers at one hundred fuckin’ feet, Da weather fuckin’ awful, fuckin’ rain and fuckn’ sleet; Da compass it was swinging fuckin’ south and fuckin’ north, But we made a fuckin’ landing in da Firth of fuckin’ Forth.

Durante stopped playing and showed the crowd a big loopy grin. The men of the Enterprise shuffled uncomfortably in their seats. No one applauded. Oliver cringed. Undaunted, Durante took a slug of Frydenlund and launched into the chorus.

Ain’t da Navy fuckin’ awful? Ain’t da Navy fuckin’ awful? Ain’t da Navy fuckin’ awful? We made a fuckin’ landing in da Firth of fuckin’ Forth.

Rising from the stool, Durante said, “Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!”

Hard times had befallen the Midnight Sun Canteen. Bored to death and sick of the cold, the Great American Nostalgia Machine had started adulterating its repertoire with off-color songs that, despite their historical authenticity, were clearly nothing Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, or the Andrews Sisters would have ever performed in public. The hostesses were tired of pretending to have crushes on the pilots and sailors, and the pilots and sailors were tired of the hostesses being tired of them. As for Sonny Orbach and His Harmonicoots, they had quit the scene entirely, off reincarnating Glenn Miller’s band at a bar mitzvah in Connecticut, a long-standing commitment they’d insisted on honoring despite Oliver’s offer to double their wages. Those servicemen who still felt the urge to dance were forced to settle for either Myron Kovitsky’s feeble piano-playing skills or Sidney Pembroke’s Victrola rasping out Albert Flume’s original 78-rpm records of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and the real Glenn Miller.

Oliver had to admit it: his grand crusade was on the verge of collapse. By sitting around doing nothing for three weeks, Pembroke and Flume had amassed enough in retainer fees to stage a first-rate D-Day, and while the notion of sinking a Jap golem still appealed to them, they were far more anxious to get home and locate a reasonable facsimile of Normandy. And even if Oliver could somehow convince everybody to stay at Point Luck until a PBY recon flight spotted the Val, it was quite possible that, because of the dreadful Arctic weather, Admiral Spruance would refuse to give the go-ahead. Flaps and landing gear were sticking during the milk runs. Gas lines were clogging. The flight deck was freezing faster than Captain Murray’s men could clear it: an unbroken sheet of ice as vast as the mirror of the Hubble telescope.

Oliver spent these gloomy days at the bar, doodling randomly in his sketch pad as he tried to come up with reasons it was okay for them not to obliterate the Corpus Dei after all.

“Fellas, I got a question for you,” he said, putting the final touches on a caricature of Myron Kovitsky. “This campaign of ours — is it truly justified?”

“What do you mean?” asked Barclay, deftly shuffling a pack of playing cards.

“Maybe the body should be left alone,” said Oliver. “Maybe it should even be brought to light, like Sylvia Endicott insisted the night she quit.” Rotating on his bar stool, he placed himself face to face with Winston. “A disclosure might even spark your True Revolution, right? Once everybody knows He’s cashed it in, they’ll leave their churches and start building the workers’ paradise.”

“You don’t know very much about Marxism, do you?” Winston arranged two dozen stray Frydenlund bottle caps into a hammer and sickle. “Until they’re given something better to replace it with, the masses will never abandon religion, corpse or no corpse. Once social justice triumphs, of course, the God myth will vanish” — he snapped his fingers — “like that.”

“Oh, come off it.” Barclay made the queen of spades vault magically from the pack. “Religion will always exist, Winston.”

“Why do you think that?”

Al Jolson wandered drunkenly onstage.

“One word,” said Barclay. “Death. Religion solves it, social justice doesn’t.” Turning toward Oliver, he caused the jack of hearts to leap into his friend’s lap. “But what does it matter, eh? I hate to be blunt, Oliver, but I think it’s pretty damn likely Cassie’s ship has been lost at sea.”

As Oliver winced, Jolson began singing a cappella:

Oh, I love to see Shirley make water, She can pee such a beautiful stream. She can pee for a mile and a quarter, And you can’t see her ass for the steam.

At which instant Ray Spruance’s portrayer’s static-laden voice exploded from the loudspeakers. “Attention, everyone! This is the admiral! Good news, boys! Initial dispatches from the Coral Sea indicate that Task Force Seventeen has badly damaged the Japanese carriers Shohu and Shokaku, thereby preventing the enemy from occupying Port Moresby!”