Whatever. The delightful side of it was that, although the admiral himself scrupulously refrained from buying stock in the corporation, he did allow his sailors to do so. So far as Conrad knew, the only member of the USNSC who hadn’t bought stock in it was the admiral himself.
The Rhine was already a major artery for goods, and the Elbe was bidding fair to join it. Having a paddlesteamer to haul boats and cargo upstream was going to make the new shipping line that had commissioned her very rich indeed. Or spectacularly poor, perhaps—but, either way, the yard would have had their money by then, Conrad’s stock options would mature and he’d be into the serious money, maybe even thinking about getting married.
Stern-wheeled, twin-engined and with a ketch rig for fuel-saving, the ship they were currently working on was broad-beamed and shallow-drafted. Her keel was forty meters of rock-elm with an iron keelson on top, and the iron frame of her hull was taking shape from one end to the other. As the frames went on, the carpentry teams bent on the strakes and fixed her lower deck onto the cast-iron cross-beams as the shape of her advanced. At her stern, the carpentry crew making the paddle-box were lighting up for their own break, while one of their apprentices was climbing down to rake the fire over and get some coffee on. Conrad decided he’d wander over in ten minutes or so and take a yard-boss’ privilege of glomming a cup.
“Halloooo!” Conrad looked around. Dietrich Schwanhausser, the admiral’s mother hen and a prize pain to all sailors while the admiral was out of town, had come through the gate and was walking along the slip to where Conrad was sitting. Well, if Mother Hen wanted to cluck a word or two while the scheissfressender crane was being fixed, now was a good time.
“Wie goes it?” Schwanhausser was looking as cheerful as he ever got. Conrad figured he must’ve counted the frames they’d gotten in so far. He was a schwein for only being cheerful with progress and looking like someone hanged his favorite dog if the margin they kept ahead of schedule ever dropped, even if there wasn’t any Navy interest in the job at hand. Like everyone in the yards he spoke a mix of German and English—with so many dialects of German, his own different from Dieter’s and each of them different again from most of the others (and the Ostfrieslanders communicating largely in grunts and swearwords), they all had to standardize somewhere. Conrad’s up-time friend Billy Trumble claimed it was the beginning of a new language altogether. Maybe he was right.
Conrad hawked and spat, his throat good and gummed with coal smoke. “Crane is upgefuckt again. We should save more time to fix him than trying to horse the rib in by hand.” And wasn’t that a prize schweinerei for a job?
“Ah.” Schwanhausser nodded and pulled out his pipe. “This is going to be someone else’s problem soon, Ensign Ursinus. The admiral has another job for you if you will.”
“Eh?”
“Ja. Naval attaché.” Schwanhausser held up his clipboard and read carefully from the radio office flimsy.
Conrad frowned. “That is a French word, ja?”
“Another English word too, it seems. I asked. However fussy the Americans might be when it comes to most forms of robbery and swindling, they are veritable Barbary pirates when it comes to plundering other languages. It means someone with a job helping an ambassador. There is an ambassador to go and you are to go with him to tell the Fremde how to make boats. And whatever else he wants.”
Schwanhausser handed over the written order. “You go to Venice, Lieutenant Ursinus. The rank is a temporary commission, do not let it swell your head.”
Conrad felt his face break out in a big smile. “Fuckin’ A,” he said.
Truly, the English language had some very useful words in it—and Conrad was bound and determined to see that whatever new language might be emerging contained each and every one of them. He rather approved of linguistic piracy himself.
* * *
“Lieutenant Trumble, sir, reporting as ordered.”