The Caine Mutiny (27 page)

“You’d be happier if the Bureau had given you another assignment, wouldn’t you?”

Queeg grinned with one side of his mouth. “Sir, I respectfully submit that that’s a question nobody would care to answer, not even the admiral.”

“True enough.” Grace paced in silence for a long time. Then he said, “Commander Queeg, I believe it’s possible to transfer you to a state-side assignment-with no reflection whatever,” he added hastily, “on your performance of duties aboard the
Caine
. The transfer would be a simple correction of an unjust and erroneous assignment. Among other things, as you know, you’re rather senior for this post. I understand the squadron is filling up with CO’s who are reserve lieutenant commanders and even lieutenants-”

Queeg, frowning at the air in front of him, his face gone pale, said with difficulty, “And I wonder how that would look in my record, sir-relieved of my first command after one month!”

“I believe I could guarantee you a fitness report that would remove any possible doubt on that score-”

Queeg suddenly plunged his left hand into his pocket and brought out the steel balls. “Don’t misunderstand me, sir. I don’t say that CO of the
Caine
is the best assignment any officer has ever had, or even that it’s the assignment I deserved. But it happens to be the assignment I’ve got. I don’t pretend to be the cleverest or smoothest officer in the Navy, Captain, by a long shot-I wasn’t first in my class by any manner of means, and I never got very good grease marks-but I’ll tell you this, sir, I’m one of the stubbornest. I’ve sweated through tougher assignments than this. I haven’t won any popularity contests, but I have bitched and crabbed and hollered and bullied until I’ve gotten things done the way I wanted them done, and the only way I’ve ever wanted things done is by the book. I’m a book man. The
Caine
is far from what I want it to be, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up and sneak off to some shore billet. No, thank you, Captain Grace.” He looked for a moment at the operations officer, and resumed his glowering address to the invisible audience in front of and a little above him. “I am captain of the
Caine
, and I intend to remain captain, and while I’m captain the
Caine
will carry out all its assignments or go to the bottom trying. I’ll promise you one thing, sir-if stubbornness, and toughness, and unremitting vigilance and supervision by the commanding officer are of any avail, the
Caine
will come through any combat duty assigned. And I’ll stand by the fitness report I’ll get when my tour of duty is over, sir. That’s all I have to say.”

Grace leaned backward, hooking his arm over the back of his chair. He regarded Queeg with’ a slight smile, and nodded his head slowly several times. “Professional pride and a sense of duty, both of which you obviously have, can carry an officer a long way in this outfit.” He stood, and put out his hand to Queeg. “I think we’ve each spoken our piece. I’m going to accept your report. As to these mistakes of yours, or unfortunate incidents, as you prefer to call them, well, they say a bad beginning makes a good ending- You know, Commander,” he went on, rapping his pipe on the glass ashtray, “we got a lot of indoctrination at the Academy about the degree of perfection that’s expected in a naval officer, and the fact that there’s no margin for error, and so forth. Well, I sometimes wonder whether all that wasn’t laid on a bit too thick.”

Queeg glanced questioningly at the operations officer, who laughed.

“Sounds like heresy, hey? Well, all I’ve got to say is, I’ve seen so much motion wasted and ink spilled and hot air issued in this outfit, trying to make a plain dumb mistake fit into this pattern of perfection,
after
the fact- Well, maybe I’m getting too old to keep the game up, or something.” He shrugged. “If I were you, Commander, I’d worry a little less about making mistakes, and a little more about doing the most sensible and useful thing that occurs to you in any given circumstances.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Queeg. “I have always endeavored to make only sensible and useful decisions, and in view of your kind advice I shall redouble my efforts in that direction.”

The captain of the
Caine
returned by bus to the dock where his ship was moored. Descending among a group of yard workmen, he was unnoticed by anyone on the
Caine
until he came walking up the gangway. Unluckily, the gangway petty officer, Stilwell, was leaning on the OOD’s desk, leafing through a comic book which he had idly picked off the deck; and Queeg saw this, though the gangway messenger bellowed “Attention on deck!” and Stilwell spun around and froze in a stiff salute.

The captain returned the salute, apparently unperturbed. “Where’s the officer of the deck?”

“Ensign Harding is on the forecastle, sir,” Stilwell rapped out, “getting new chafing gear put on number-one line, sir.”

“Kay. Messenger, call Ensign Harding to the quarterdeck.” They waited in silence, the gunner’s mate at rigid attention, the captain smoking, and glancing curiously around the deck. Sailors who issued whistling or humming from the passageways stopped their song, and either shrank back into the gloom or continued on with rapid steps, squaring their hats and averting their eyes. Harding came out of the starboard passageway and exchanged salutes with the captain.

“Mr. Harding,” said Queeg, “are you aware that your gangway petty officer was reading on watch?”

The ensign, shocked, turned to the gunner’s mate. “Is that true, Stilwell?”

Queeg snapped angrily, “Of course it’s true! Do you take me for a liar, sir?”

The OOD shook his head dizzily. “I didn’t mean to imply-”

“Mr. Harding, did you know he was reading on watch?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, why didn’t you?”

“Sir, number-one line was beginning to fray, and I was-”

“I didn’t ask you for an alibi, Mr. Harding. An officer of the deck has no alibis. He is responsible for every goddamned thing that happens during his watch,
every goddamned thing
, do you hear?” Queeg was shouting, and the crew men working on the galley deckhouse and the afterdeck turned to hear. “You will call your relief, Mr. Harding, and you will notify the senior watch officer that you have been removed from the watch bill until such time as you seem to have acquired some dim notion of an officer of the deck’s duties and responsibilities! Is that clear?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Harding said hoarsely.

“As for this man,” said Queeg, pointing at Stilwell with his thumb, “you will, place him on report, and we’ll see whether six months’ restriction to the ship will teach him not to read on watch, and whether that lesson suffices for the rest of the crew, or anyone else needs the same dose- Carry on.”

Queeg walked off the quarterdeck and went below to his cabin. On his desk lay the two written reports about Urban’s shirttail. He tossed his cap on his bed, took off his jacket, loosened his tie, dropped into the swivel chair, and read the reports through hastily, rattling the balls in his fist. Then he rang a buzzer and picked up the telephone on a bracket by the desk. “Tell the gangway messenger to find Lieutenant Keefer and have him report to my cabin.” In a few minutes there was a knock at the door. Queeg, who had been sitting with his head in his hands, picked up Keefer’s report, turned to the second page, and called over his shoulder, “Come in!”

The communications officer entered, and closed the door. After a moment Keefer said, addressing the captain’s back: “You sent for me, sir?”

Queeg grunted, and rustled the papers. With a patronizing grin, Keefer propped his long, thin frame against the captain’s bunk, resting on his elbows, and waited. The captain dropped the report to the desk, and pushed it aside with the back of his hand. “Unsatisfactory!”

“Oh?” said the communications officer. “May I ask why, sir?”

But he allowed a little too much aristocratic amusement to creep into his tone. Queeg looked up at him swiftly. “Stand at attention, Mr. Keefer, when you’re in conference with your commanding officer!”

Keefer straightened in a leisurely way, an irritating ghost of a grin remaining on his face. “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Take that back,” said Queeg, contemptuously indicating the report with his thumb. “Rewrite and resubmit prior to 1600 today.”

“Aye aye, sir. May I respectfully inquire in what way it is inadequate?”

“It tells me nothing I didn’t know before, and explains nothing I wanted explained.”

“Sorry, sir. I’m afraid I don’t understand that.”

“I see.” Queeg picked up the other report, which Keefer had rattled off for Willie Keith’s signature, and flourished it. “Well, Mr. Keefer, I suggest you consult your assistant, Ensign Keith, in that case. He can teach you a great deal about composing a written report, strange as it may seem. This letter which he submitted on the same subject is absolutely excellent.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Keefer. “I’m happy to know I have such talent in my department.”

Queeg smiled, evidently judging that he had pricked Keefer’s core of vanity. He nodded several times and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, Tom, you take this report of Keith’s, and study it. Try to see why Willie has written a perfect report whereas yours is a phony gun-deck job.”

In his own room, Keefer performed a series of grotesque monkeylike capers, during which he several times rubbed both reports forcibly against his behind. Then he dived into his bunk and buried his face in his pillow, shaking with choked laughter.

Captain Grace stood beside the admiral’s heavy mahogany desk in a wood-paneled, green-carpeted room.

“I wish you’d have let
me
see the report before accepting it,” the admiral was grumbling. He was a lean, wintry little man with piercing blue eyes.

“I’m sorry, Admiral.”

“It’s all right. What’s your impression of this Queeg? That’s the main thing.”

Grace drummed on the desk softly with his fingers for a moment. “An old lady, I’m afraid, sir. I think he’s earnest enough and probably pretty tough, but he’s one of those that are never wrong, no matter how wrong they are-always some damn argument to defend himself, you know-and I don’t think he’s very bright. One of the low men in his class. I’ve been checking around.”

“How about that towline? What’s the story? Did he cut it or didn’t he?”

Grace shook his head dubiously. “Well, it’s one of those things. He got terribly offended when I asked about it-seemed sincere enough. I more or less had to take his word that it didn’t happen. You’d have to run a court of inquiry to get at the definite facts, sir, and I don’t know-”

“Hell, we can’t go tracking down scuttlebutt with courts of inquiry. But I don’t like the cut of the man’s jib, Grace. Too many questionable occurrences too fast. Do you think I ought to recommend to the Bureau that he be relieved?”

“No, sir,” said Grace promptly. “In all fairness to the man, he’s done nothing that we know of definitely to warrant that. Overtension in his first command could account for everything that’s happened so far.”

“Well, then-look here, CincPac wants me to send two destroyer-minesweepers back to the States for overhaul and new radar installations, to go on the Flintlock push,” said the admiral. “What’s wrong with sending the
Caine
?”

“Nothing, sir. It’s been in the forward area twenty-two months-”

“Okay. Get up the despatch recommending the
Caine
. Let this Queeg pull his next butch somewhere else.”

A yard overhaul in the States was the most precious, prayed-for assignment of the war. In a year of combat steaming De Vriess had been unable to earn it for the old disintegrating
Caine
. Queeg had achieved it in his first four weeks, commanding the Navy’s best goddamn target-towing ship.

CHAPTER 15

Joys of the Homeward Voyage

When the despatch came, it was New Year’s Eve, Fourth of July, and every man’s birthday and wedding day aboard the
Caine
. Willie Keith, too, felt his blood bubbling, though by
Caine
standard he was a Johnny-come-lately who had scarcely wiped off the lipstick of his last state-side farewell. He wrote to May and to his mother, hinting strongly to May that her presence on the pier when the
Caine
pulled into San Francisco would be an overwhelmingly fine surprise (he omitted any such hint to his mother). He composed the letter to May in the clipping shack, crawling into his hole like an animal to enjoy his delight in dark solitude; and he took long pauses in the writing, with the ink caking on the nib of his fountain pen, while he stared at the paper and his mind rioted through Mohammedan fantasies.

A shadow fell across the page. Looking up, he saw Stilwell standing in the doorway. The sailor wore the immaculate dungarees and highly polished shoes in which he had appeared for trial at captain’s mast that morning, shortly before the arrival of the despatch.

“Yes, Stilwell?” said Willie sympathetically.

As officer of the deck Willie had recorded Stilwell’s sentence in the log: six months’ restriction to the ship. He had observed the mast ceremony on the quarterdeck with some wonderment-the solemn array of scared offenders in stiff new blue dungarees, the accusing officers lined up at attention opposite the culprits, and Queeg, calm and pleasant, receiving the prisoners’ red service folders one by one from Jellybelly. It was a curious sort of justice. So far as Willie knew, all the offenders had been placed on report by order of Captain Queeg. Ensign Harding, for instance, appeared to accuse Stilwell, but he had not seen the sailor reading on watch. Since Captain Queeg never placed anyone on report himself, but always turned to the nearest officer and said, “I want this man placed on report,” the triangle of justice was maintained in form, accuser, accused, and judge. And Queeg was ceremoniously interested and surprised by the accuser’s narration of the offense which he himself had ordered reported. Willie had watched this strange business for a while and had indignantly concluded that it was an outrage against civil liberties, and constitutional rights, and habeas corpus, and eminent domain, and bills of attainder, and every other half-remembered phrase which meant that an American was entitled to a fair shake.

“Sir,” said Stilwell, “you’re the morale officer, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” said Willie. He swung his legs to the deck, put aside his stationery box, and screwed his fountain pen shut, converting himself with these motions from a girl-hungry youngster to a naval functionary.

He liked Stilwell. There are young ;men, slim, well built, and clean-faced, with bright eyes and thick hair, and an open, cheery look, who invite good feeling, and make things pleasant wherever they are, almost in the way pretty girls do, by the pure morning light that is on them; the gunner’s mate was one of those.

“Well, sir,” said Stilwell, “I got a problem.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Stilwell plunged into a rambling tale, the meat of which was that he had a wife and child in Idaho, and that he had reasons to doubt his wife’s faithfulness. “What I want to know is, sir, does this restriction mean I don’t get to go home on leave? I haven’t been home in two years, sir.”

“I don’t think it does, Stilwell, I can’t imagine that it would. Any man who’s been in the combat area as long as you have is entitled to go home unless he’s committed murder or something.”

“Is that the regulations, sir, or is it just how you figure it?”

“It’s how I figure it, Stilwell, but, unless I tell you otherwise, and I’ll find out pretty damn soon, well, you can count on it.”

“What I want to know, sir-can I write home that I’m coming, like all the other guys are doing?”

The answer to this, as Willie well knew, was that Stilwell had better wait until the captain’s views were explored. But the hungry appeal in the sailor’s face, and Willie’s own slight defensiveness about his lack of information, led him to say, “I’m sure you can, Stilwell.”

The gunner’s mate brightened so marvelously that Willie was glad he had ventured to be positive. “Thank you, Mr. Keith, thanks a whole lot,” stammered Stilwell, his mouth trembling a little, his eyes glistening. “You don’t know what that means to me, sir.” He put on his hat, straightened, and saluted Willie as though he were an admiral. The ensign returned the salute, nodding pleasantly,

“Okay, Stilwell,” he said. “Glad to be chaplain for you any time.” Willie resumed writing the letter to May Wynn; and in the spangled excitement of the images that went shimmering through his brain he forgot the conversation.

The talk in the wardroom at lunch the next day was warm and jolly for the first time since the change of command. Old jokes were revived about romantic escapades in Australia and New Zealand. Maryk took the worst drubbing, for a liaison with a middle-aged waitress in an Auckland teashop. The number of moles on the lady’s face was thoroughly discussed, Gorton putting the number at seven and Maryk at two, with votes for figures in between from the others.

“Well, I think Steve is right, after all,” said Keefer. “I guess two were moles. The rest were warts.”

Whittaker, the steward’s mate, who with his usual mournful expression was passing around a platter of fried ham, suddenly broke into a scream of laughter and dropped the platter, narrowly missing the captain’s head. The red greasy meat slices tumbled all over the deck. In holiday mood, Captain Queeg said, “Whittaker, if you have to throw food at me don’t throw meat, throw vegetables, they’re cheaper.” By wardroom tradition any witticism of a captain is automatically hilarious. There was great laughter.

Maryk said to the fat exec, “Well, okay, if she did have seven moles, at least she was real. I’m not satisfied, like some guys, with a lot of French magazines and postcards.”

“Steve, I have a wife to be faithful to,” said Gorton cheerily. “She can’t divorce me for looking at pictures. But if I were a free agent like you, and couldn’t do better than that New Zealand wart hog, I think I’d go in for postcards.”

“Damn clever idea I came across once,” said Queeg, obviously in a rare good humor, for he usually took no part in wardroom chatter. The officers fell silent and listened respectfully for the captain’s table talk. “Speaking of postcards, that is. I don’t know how I got on this mailing list but I did and-well, all you had to do was send this company a dollar a month, see, and they sent you these pictures, real big and glossy prints, about six by four, I guess.” He indicated a rectangle with his two thumbs and forefingers. “Well, what was so clever-you know, you can’t send pictures of naked ladies through the mail, well-these gals weren’t naked, no sir, they had on the prettiest little pink pants and bras you ever saw, all nice and legal. The only thing was, their undies were washable. All you had to do was pass a wet cloth over the picture and-well, there you were- Damn clever.” He looked around with a happy snigger. Most of the officers managed to produce smiles. Keefer lit a cigarette, covering his face with his cupped palms, and Willie stuffed a whole slice of ham into his mouth.

“By the way,” the captain went on, “none of you fellows have used up your liquor ration at the club, have you? Or if anyone has, say so.” None of the officers spoke up. “That’s fine. Anybody have any objection to selling his ration to me?”

The ration was five quarts of bottled liquor per month, which could be bought at the officers’ wine mess in the Navy Yard for a fraction of the price in the United States. Queeg caught his officers off guard; they hadn’t been thinking ahead to the cost of liquor back home. With varying shades of grumpiness they all consented except Harding.

“Captain,” he said plaintively, “I plan for my wife and me to drink up my year’s pay, and anything I can save will be a big help.”

Queeg laughed appreciatively, and excused him. That same evening, therefore, the
Caine
’s officers, shepherded by the captain, lined up at the liquor counter of the club and bought some thirty quarts of scotch and rye whisky. Captain Queeg directed them one by one, with many thanks, as they came away from the counter carrying armloads of bottles, to a jeep that stood outside in the gloom of the driveway. When the jeep had taken on a full cargo the captain drove off, leaving the knot of
Caine
officers looking at each other.

Carpenter’s Mate Second Class Langhorne was summoned to the captain’s cabin next morning at seven-thirty. He found the captain, in wrinkled stained gabardines, leaning over his bunk chewing a dead cigar stub, and counting an array of bottles spread across the blanket. “Hello, Langhorne. What kind of crate can you fix me up for thirty-one bottles?” the carpenter, a dour Missourian with a long bony face, protruding Power jaw, and lank black hair, goggled at the contraband. Captain Queeg said with a chuckle and a wink, “Medical supplies, Langhorne, medical supplies. Outside your province, and if asked, you’ve never seen these bottles and know nothing about them.”

“Yes, sir,” said the carpenter. “Fix up a crate, say, three by two, something like that-pack it with excelsior-”

“Excelsior, hell, this stuff is precious. I want partitions between the bottles and excelsior packed between the partitions-”

“Sir, we ain’t got no thin stuff for partitions, no plywood nor nothin’-”

“Well, hell, get some sheet tin from the metalsmith’s shop.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll fix it up nice, sir.”

Late that afternoon Langhorne came staggering into the wardroom, his face pouring sweat, bearing on his back a box made of fresh-sawed white boards. He stumbled into Queeg’s cabin and let the crate down to the deck with fearsome grunts and grimaces, as though it were a piano. Mopping his streaming face with a red bandanna, he said, “Jesus, sir, them sheet-lead partitions are heavy-”

“Sheet
lead
?”

“Metalsmiths were fresh out of sheet tin, sir-”

“But Christ,
lead
. Good stiff cardboard would have done just as well-”

“I can rip them lead sheets out, sir, and make it over-”

“No, leave it as it is,” grumbled Queeg. “It just means some seamen are going to be getting some healthy exercise in a few days, which is just as well- Probably I can use a supply of sheet lead back home, at that,” he muttered.

“Pardon me, sir?”

“Never mind. Get some excelsior and pack away those bottles.” He pointed to the treasure, ranged on the deck under the washbowl.

“Aye aye, sir.”

“
Now hear this. General drills will commence at 1400
.”

The
Caine
was steaming in her position at the right end of the semicircular screen of escorts, which plowed in the van of the convoy of four fleet oilers, two transports, and three merchant ships. They were far out of sight of land, rocking over calm blue water. The ships were disposed in a neat pattern on the sunlit sea.

Ensign Keith, junior officer of the deck, was greatly enjoying this voyage. No submarines had been reported east of Hawaii for a year, but still, there was no doubt at all that Willie Keith was JOOD on a ship which was sniffing for Jap submersibles. If the OOD should drop dead or fall over the side it was conceivable that he, Ensign Keith, might take the conn, sink a submarine, and win great glory. It was not likely-but it was possible, whereas it was not possible, for example, that his mother might do it. The OOD, Keefer, added to his exaltation by putting him in charge of the zigzag plan, allowing him to give the orders to the helm. Willie tried to snap the orders out at the instant when the second hand of the bridge chronometer was cleaving the dot over twelve o’clock. The war had at last begun for him.

Captain Queeg came on the bridge at two minutes before two, squinting around in an irritated way, followed by Gorton, who had a whipped-dog look. The exec had, in fact, just received a raking for his failure to conduct general drills more often, and was mentally composing the opening paragraphs of a written report explaining why he hadn’t held them. Queeg had come across a CincPac letter in his correspondence that morning, desiring written reports from all ships on the number of drills conducted each month. “Kay,” said the captain to Engstrand. “Hoist ‘I am conducting general drills.’ ”

The signalman ran up a halyard display of colored flags. Willie, at a nod from the captain, walked to the red-painted general alarm handle in the wheelhouse, and yanked it. Then, while the whang-whang-whang shook the air, he inspected with satisfaction his image in one of the bridge windowpanes. Confronting him was the shadowy figure of a World War II sea warrior, complete with bulbous helmet, bulky gray kapok life jacket and attached flashlight, and gray flash-burn paint on his face and hands. Everybody on the bridge was similarly dressed

Elsewhere on the ship things were different. The
Caine
crew, after more than a year of general quarters under Japanese air attacks, followed by a couple of months of Pearl Harbor indolence, were not inclined to take pains with a mock general alarm in the peaceful waters between Honolulu and San Francisco. Half of them appeared at their battle stations minus either helmet or life jacket, or both. Queeg peered here and there, frowning horribly.