"Why didn't you accept the captain's offer?"
"I didn't see how I could."
"But the danger from the typhoon was over. Didn't you think he could conn the ship back to Ulithi?"
"I'd already committed an official act and I didn't' believe making erasures in the logs would change it. Also I still be-lieved he was mentally ill."
"But you say he was rational."
"Captain Queeg was usually okay except under great pres-sure, when he tended to become mentally disabled."
"Then you had the chance, twenty-four hours later, of ex-punging the whole event from the official record with the cap-tain's knowledge and approval?"
"Yes."
"Lieutenant Maryk, were you panicky at any time during the typhoon?"
"I was not."
"How can you substantiate your statement?"
"Well, I-well, by what happened. After relieving the cap-tain I rescued five survivors from the George Black at the height of the typhoon. I don't think a panicky officer could have effected the rescue under those conditions."
"Did you relieve Captain Queeg willfully?"
"Yes, I knew what I was doing."
"Did you relieve without authority?"
"No. My authority was Articles 184, 185, 186."
"Did you relieve without justifiable cause?"
"No. My justifiable cause was the captain's mental break-down at a time when the ship was in danger."
"No further questions."
Challee came toward Maryk, saying in a tone of open hostil-ity, "Just to start with, Mr. Maryk, wasn't the captain on the bridge all the time you were effecting that rescue?"
"He was."
"Didn't he order you to come about and look for survivors?"
"After I'd already come about, he said he was ordering me to do it."
"Didn't he direct you in the whole rescue operation?"
"Well, he kept commenting on my orders."
"Could you possibly have effected that rescue without his orders, or comments, as you call them?"
"Well, I tried to be polite. He was still senior officer present. But I was too busy to pay attention to his comments and I don't remember them."
"Didn't he even have to remind you to do an elementary thing like putting the cargo net over the side?"
"I was holding off on the cargo net till the last minute. I didn't want it to be carried away by the seas. He reminded me, but he didn't have to."
"Mr. Maryk, what kind of rating would you give yourself for loyalty to your captain?"
"That's hard to answer."
"I'll bet it is. Four-oh? Two-five? Zero?"
"I think I was a loyal officer."
"Did you issue a seventy-two-hour pass to Stilwell in Decem-ber '43 against the captain's express instructions?"
"I did."
"Do you call that a loyal act?"
"No. It was a disloyal act."
Challee was caught off balance. He stared at Maryk. "You admit to a disloyal act in your first days as executive officer?"
"Yes."
"Very interesting. Why did you commit a disloyal act?"
"I have no excuse. I didn't do that kind of thing again."
"But you admit starting your term as exec as you finished it, with disloyalty?"
"I don't admit to finishing disloyally."
"Did you hear sarcastic and insulting remarks passed by the other officers about your captain?"
"I did."
"How did you punish them?"
"I didn't punish them. I repeatedly warned them against the practice and I didn't allow it in my presence."
"But you didn't punish this outright insubordination? Why didn't you?"
"There are limits to what you can do in a situation."
Challee clawed over Maryk's story of the typhoon, catching him in minor inconsistencies and memory lapses. But the exec, with dull stolidness, admitted to mistakes and inconsistencies, and stuck to his story. Then the judge advocate switched to Maryk's background, and brought out that his grades had been lower than average in high school and college, and that he had had no training in psychiatry or any other science.
"Then where did you get all these highfalutin ideas about paranoia?"
"Out of books."
"What books? Name the titles."
"Medical-type books about mental illness."
"Was that your intellectual hobby-reading about psychia-try?"
"No. I borrowed the books off of ships' doctors here and there, after I began to think the captain was sick."
"And you, with your background-did you imagine you un-derstood these highly technical, abstruse scientific works?"
"Well, I got something out of them."
"Have you ever heard the expression, `A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'?"
"Yes."
"You got a headful of terms you didn't understand, and on that basis you had the temerity to depose a commanding offi-cer on the grounds of mental illness. Is that correct?"
"I didn't relieve him because of what the books said. The ship was in danger-"
"Never mind the ship. We're discussing your grasp of psy-chiatry, Lieutenant." Challee belabored him with dozens of psychiatric terms, asking him for definitions and explanations. He reduced the exec to glum monosyllables and frequent rep-etitions of "I don't know."
"In fact, you don't know what you're talking about when you discuss mental illness, is that right?"
"I didn't say I knew much about it."
"And yet you thought you knew enough to commit an act that might be outright mutiny, justifying yourself by your grasp of psychiatric diagnosis?"
"I wanted to save the ship."
"What right had you to usurp the captain's responsibility for the ship's safety-setting aside your psychiatric insight?"
"Well, I-" Maryk stared dumbly.
"Answer the question, please! Either your act was justified by your psychiatric diagnosis of Queeg-or else it was the most serious breach of naval discipline of which you were capable. Isn't that right?"
"If he wasn't sick it would have been a mutinous act. But he was sick."
"Have you heard the diagnosis of the qualified psychiatrists who have testified?"
"Yes."
"What was their diagnosis-was he sick or wasn't he on 18 December?"
"They say he wasn't."
"Lieutenant Maryk, did you think your ship-handling judg-ment was better than the captain's?"
"In normal circumstances the captain could handle the ship. Under pressure he became erratic."
"Isn't the reverse possible-that under pressure you became erratic, and couldn't understand the captain's sound decisions? Is that possible?"
"It's possible, but-"
"As between a captain and an executive officer, who is presumed by the Navy to have the better judgment in ship handling?"
"The captain."
"Now, Lieutenant, your so-called justification consists in two assertions, doesn't it-one, that the captain was mentally ill, and two, that the ship was in a dangerous situation-correct?"
"Yes."
"The doctors have found that he wasn't mentally ill, haven't they?"
"That's their opinion, yes-"
"Then this court must presume that the captain's estimate of the ship's situation was right and yours was wrong, isn't that so?"
Maryk said, "Yes, except-just don't forget the doctors could be wrong. They weren't there."
"Then your entire defense, Lieutenant Maryk, boils down to this. Your on-the-spot snap psychiatric diagnosis-despite your confessed ignorance of psychiatry-is superior to the judgment of three psychiatrists after three weeks of exhaustive professional examination. That is your defense, isn't it?"
Maryk took a long pause, then said shakily, "All I can say is, they didn't see him when the ship was in trouble."
Challee turned and grinned openly at the court. He went on, "Who was the third ranking officer on your ship?"
"Lieute
nant Keefer."
"Was he a good officer?"
"Yes."
"What's his civilian background?"
"He's an author."
"Do you consider his mind as good as yours? Or perhaps better?"
"Perhaps better."
"Did you show him this medical log of yours?"
"Yes."
"Was he convinced by it that the captain was mentally ill?"
"No."
"Did he dissuade you from trying to have the captain relieved, two weeks before the typhoon?"
"Yes."
"And yet two weeks later-despite the whole weight of naval discipline-despite the arguments of the next officer in rank to you, a superior intellect by your own admission, arguments that had previously convinced you your diagnosis was wrong-you went ahead and seized command of your ship?"
"I relieved him because he definitely seemed sick during the typhoon."
"Don't you think it's illogical, or fantastically conceited, to insist on your ignorant diagnosis now against the opinion of three psychiatrists?"
Maryk looked around unhappily at Greenwald, who was staring at the desk. The exec's forehead was covered with wrinkles. He swung his head back and forth, like an annoyed bull. "Well, maybe it sounds that way. I don't know."
"Very well. Now then. This amazing interview in which the captain offered to falsify official records. Were there any witnesses to it?"
"No, we were alone in the captain's cabin."
"Were any erasures made? Is there the slightest thread of tangible evidence to support your story?"
"The captain knows it happened."
"You rely for confirmation of this insulting libel upon the very officer you are libeling?"
"I don't know what he'll say."
"Are you predicting that Commander Queeg will perjure himself on the stand?"
"I'm not predicting anything."
"Is there a possibility that you imagined this story, which can't be confirmed or refuted except by the other interested party, to bolster your magnificent defense that you know more psychiatry than psychiatrists?"
"I didn't imagine it."
"But you still imagine your diagnosis of Captain Queeg is superior to the doctors'?"
"Only-only about Queeg on the morning of the typhoon," Maryk stammered. There was sweat on his brown forehead.
"No more questions," Challee said sarcastically.
Maryk looked to his counsel. Greenwald shook his head slightly, and said, "No re-examination." The exec came off the stand with a stunned expression. Blakely adjourned the court after Greenwald told him that the last defense witness, Captain Queeg, would appear in the morning.
36
Queeg Versus Greenwald
The defense counsel introduced as evidence photostatic copies of Maryk's fitness reports, and then called Queeg. The ex-cap-tain of the Caine, taking the stand, was as debonair and assured as he had been on the first day. The exec marveled again at the change wrought by sunshine, and rest, and a new blue uniform. Queeg was like a poster picture of a commanding offi-cer of the Navy.
Greenwald lost no time in getting to the attack. "Com-mander, on the morning of December 19, did you have an interview in your room with Lieutenant Maryk?"
"Let's see. That's the day after the typhoon. Yes, I did."
"Was it at your request?"
"Yes."
"What was the substance of that interview?"
"Well, as I say, I felt sorry for him. I hated to see him ruin-ing his life with one panicky mistake. Particularly as I knew his ambition was to make the Navy his career. I tried as hard as I could to show him what a mistake he had made. I rec-ommended that he relinquish command to me, and I offered to be as lenient as I could in reporting what had happened."
"What was his response?"
"Well, as you know, he persisted in the course that led to this court-martial."
"You say you felt sorry for him. Weren't you worried about the effect of the episode on your own career?"
"Well, after all, I knew the verdict of the doctors would turn out as it did. I can't say I was very worried."
"Did you offer not to report the incident at all?"
"Of course not. I offered to report the incident in the most extenuating way I could."
"How could you have extenuated it?"
"Well, I thought there were extenuating circumstances. A rough situation where a junior officer might well lose his head. And there was the rescue, which he brought off well under my direction. I was assuming mainly that by restoring command to me he'd acknowledge the error. It was the only course at that point that might have saved him."
"You never offered not to report the incident?"
"How could I? It was already recorded in the logs."
"Were the logs in pencil, or typed, or what?"
"That would make no difference."
"Were they in pencil, Commander?"
"Well, let's see. Probably they were-QM log and OOD rough log always are. I doubt the yeoman would have gotten around to typing smooth logs in all the excitement."
"Did you offer to erase the incident from the penciled logs and make no report at all?"
"I did not. Erasures aren't permitted in penciled logs."
"Lieutenant Maryk has testified under oath, Commander, that you made such an offer. Not only that, but you begged and pleaded and even wept to get him to agree to erase those few pencil lines, in return for which you promised to hush up the incident completely and make no report."
"That isn't true." Queeg spoke calmly and pleasantly.
"There isn't any truth in it at all?"
"Well, it's a distortion of what I told you. My version is the exact truth."
"You deny the proposal to erase the logs and hush up the story?"
"I deny it completely. That's the part he made up. And the weeping and the pleading. That's fantastic."
"You are accusing Mr. Maryk of perjury?"
"I'm not accusing him. He's accused of enough as it stands. You're likely to hear a lot of strange things from Mr. Maryk about me, that's all."
"Isn't one of you obviously not telling the truth about that interview?"
"It appears so."
"Can you prove it isn't you?"
"Only by citing a clean record of over eight years as a naval officer, against the word of a man on trial for a mutinous act."
"It's his word against yours, then, in this matter?"'
"Unfortunately there wasn't anyone else in my cabin at the time."
"Commander, did you recommend to the commodore at Ulithi that Maryk be allowed to take the Caine to Lingayen Gulf?"
"I thought that would come up. I did, yes."
"Despite the fact that, according to your story, you had seen him make a panicky mistake in a tight situation-a mis-take of the most disastrous kind?"
"Well, I wasn't recommending him for command. The com-modore put it to me that the Navy desperately needed mine-sweepers. He asked me to put aside personal considerations. I did put aside personal considerations. Maryk vindicated the training I had given him. And if as a result of that he gets acquitted and I carry a black mark for the rest of my naval career I'll still say I did the right thing."
"How could you be sure he wouldn't make another panicky mistake which would cost all the lives on the Caine?"
"Well, he didn't, did he? I took a calculated risk, and he didn't."
"Commander, the Caine took a Kamikaze hit at Lingayen, and yet Maryk brought the ship back safely. Was that likely in a man given to panicky mistakes?"
"Well, I understand it was a glancing hit, practically a miss. Anyway, for all I know, Keefer took charge in the pinch. Keefer is an outstanding officer, best on the ship. I relied more on him than on Maryk."
"Commander Queeg, did you ever receive a hundred ten dollars from Lieutenant Junior Grade Keith?"
"I may have. I don't recall offhand that I did."
"He testified that you did."
Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny Page 60