[color=magenta][u]|USS [i]Tulsa[/i][/u][/color]
Aviation Machinist's Mate (AMM) Donald Lipke woke up slowly, then all at once. His "alarm clock", AMM Roger Douglass, did that to you. First he'd gradually shake you, and then shake you more, and finally whack your face with a pillow. Groaning, Donald rolled out of his rack. 23:50 - ten minutes before midrats, just enough time to get in line. Roger had already grabbed some of Don's chewing tobacco as form of payment. Some idiot brass in Washington had decided that cigarettes were too much of a fire hazard, even though US airships used helium, not hydrogen, as lifting gas. The porthole in the port crew compartment showed land. There was a river far below, occasionally glimpsed through fog.

Don ducked through the hatch into the cramped port passageway. It was one of three passageways that ran the length of the ship, each along one of the ship's three keels - one starboard, one port, and the 18 keel that ran under the top of the ship's envelope. On his right, Don could hear the thump of sailors working in the hangar. It didn't take long for him to reach the end of the mess line.

"What the hell are we going to Glasgow for?" someone said in front of him.
"Gotta be we're going to France." another sailor said.
"France? Bullshit. What the hell would we do in France?" he recognized this voice as Red watch's radioman.
"Kick some Nazi ass," the second sailor said.
"No, no, you guys are missing the point. Glasgow doesn't even have a mooring station!" the first sailor said.
"Yeah? How do you know?" Don asked.
"I got a girl in Scotland," the first sailor said.
"Didn't know you were into the bonnie wee redheads," the second sailor said.
"That's Ireland, you idiot," the first retorted. "Anyway, it doesn't make any sense!"
"Not unless we're being redeployed to France, anyway," the second said.
"Why'd we go to France? The Krauts got land-subs we don't know about?" the first said.
"You know we're going to Glasgow?" Don asked the radioman.
"Yeah, heard it come in myself. Right after Cap' Owens lost the convoy," the radioman said.

The sobering silence lasted only a moment before the sailors erupted into argument again. Meanwhile, the USS [i]Tulsa[/i] drifted along the River Clyde, ever closer to Glasgow. Countryside residents trailed behind, looking up in astonishment. Undoubtedly some had informed the authorities about the "Nazi Zeppelin".