by Herman Wouk
“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 h
adn’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.
“Mr. Keefer!”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to make the following announcement over the loudspeaker: ‘Every man who is not wearing a helmet or a life jacket is docked one day’s leave in the United States. Every man who is wearing neither is deprived of three days’ leave. The names are to be reported at once via the telephone talkers to the bridge.’ ”
Keefer looked stunned. He stammered, “Sir, that’s kind of tough-”
“Mister Keefer,” said the captain, “I did not ask you to pass an opinion on such disciplinary measures as I deem necessary for the instruction and safety of my crew. If these men are going to commit suicide by coming to GQ unprotected, well, nobody is going to say it’s because I didn’t impress on them the importance of wearing battle gear. Make the announcement.”
The men at the gun stations, hearing the words from the loudspeakers, could be seen turning their heads toward the bridge, their faces showing incredulity and rage. Then a boiling activity began among them, and helmets and life jackets began to appear magically, mushrooming all over the ship and passing from hand to hand.
“Now I want that knocked off!” roared Queeg. “I want those names, and I don’t want any man putting on any jacket or helmet until every single name is turned in to the bridge! Mr. Keefer, you announce that!”
“What shall I announce, sir?”
“Don’t be so goddamn stupid, sir! Announce that they’re to stop putting on that goddamn gear and report those names to the bridge!”
Keefer’s announcement blared over the decks: “Now knock off putting on gear. Turn in names of all men without gear to the bridge.”
Sailors were throwing helmets and life jackets from concealed places up to the deckhouses; a rain of the gear was flying through the air. Queeg screamed, “Send for the master-at-arms! I want whoever’s throwing those helmets and jackets put on report!”
“Chief Bellison, master-at-arms,” droned Keefer into the microphone, “please report to the bridge on the double.”
“Not to the bridge, you ass,” screeched Queeg, “tell him to go behind the galley deckhouse and arrest those men!”
“Belay that last word,” said Keefer, turning his face away from the captain to grin, “Chief Bellison, lay aft of the galley deckhouse and arrest whoever’s throwing helmets and life jackets.”
The words had scarcely died in the speakers when the deluge of gear stopped. It had served its purpose, however. There was gear on the deckhouses to spare for all ha
nds, and they were rapidly dressing themselves. Queeg ran frantically here and there on the bridge, watching the men disobeying his orders wholesale, and yelled, “Stop putting on that gear! You, down there! ... Come here, Mr. Gorton! What’s the name of that man on number-three gun? Put him on report!”
“Which one, sir?”
“Hell, the redheaded one. He just put on a helmet. I saw him!”
“Sir, if he’s got a helmet on I can’t see his hair.”
“Christ on a crutch, how many redheaded men are there on that gun?”
“Well, sir, I believe there’s three. Wingate, Parsons, Dulles-no, Dulles is more of a blond-but I think maybe he’s on gun four now, ever since-”
“Oh, Christ, forget it,” snapped Queeg. “Of all the lousy fouled-up failures to execute orders I’ve ever seen, Burt, this is the worst! The worst.”
By this time every man aboard the Caine was wearing a helmet and a life jacket. Queeg peered around the ship, with an angry balked glare. “Kay,” he said. “Kay. I see these birds think they have me licked.”
He walked into the wheelhouse, and picked up the microphone. “This is the captain speaking,” he said, and the angry tone filtered through all the distortion of the speakers. “Now, I am displeased to note that some misguided sailors on this ship believe they can pull a fast one on their captain. They are very much mistaken. I have asked for the names of the men who came to GQ out of uniform. The names don’t seem to be forthcoming. Kay. Since I have no other way of dealing out justice to the numerous cowards who are disobeying my orders to turn in their names, I am hereby depriving every man on this ship of three days’ leave in the States. The innocent must suffer with the guilty, and you’ll simply have to punish the guilty ones among yourselves for bringing this penalty on the whole crew- Kay. Now proceed with general drills.”
The convoy ran into stormy seas halfway to San Francisco, and Willie Keith began to get a clearer idea of the limitations of World War I destroyers. Towing targets on the smiling seas around Hawaii, the Caine had done plenty of rolling, and Willie had been proud of his sea legs and his quiet stomach; now he realized that he had been a little premature in congratulating himself.