by Herman Wouk
“Ah, Midshipman Keith, I believe.”
“Yes, sir,” panted Willie, erect and trembling.
“The check list showed you as absent over leave-the only one in Furnald, Midshipman Keith. I had hoped there was some mistake.” His wreathing smiles indicated that probably he had hoped harder there was no mistake. All his wrinkles were bent upward with pleasure.
“Sorry, sir. Circumstances-”
“Circumstances, Midshipman Keith? Circumstances? The only relevant circumstance that I am aware of, Midshipman Keith, is that you now have twenty demerits, the highest figure in Furnald, Midshipman Keith. What do you think of that circumstance, Midshipman Keith?”
“I’m sorry about it, sir.”
“You’re sorry about it. Thank you for informing me you’re sorry about it, Midshipman Keith. I was stupid enough to imagine that you were glad about it, Midshipman Keith. But probably you’re used to such stupidity in your superiors. You probably think we’re all stupid. You probably think all the rules of this school are stupid. Either you think that, or you think you’re too good to have to obey rules made for the common herd. Which is it, Midshipman Keith?”
To help the midshipman in making this interesting choice, he thrust his corrugated face within two inches of Willie’s nose. The midshipmen standing guard on the “quarterdeck” watched the dialogue out of the corners of their eyes, and wondered how Willie would get out of that particular alley. Willie stared at the sparse fuzz atop Ensign Brain’s head and had the sense to keep quiet.
“Fifty demerits mean expulsion, Midshipman Keith,” purred the drillmaster.
“I know, sir.”
“You’re well on the way, Midshipman Keith.”
“There won’t be any more, sir.”
Ensign Brain withdrew his face to a normal distance. “Wars are fought by the clock, Midshipman Keith. Attacks are made when ordered. Not four minutes late. A four-minute delay can cause ten thousand men to die. A whole fleet can be sunk in four minutes, Midshipman Keith.” Ensign Brain was following the usual pattern, shading his cat-and-mouse delights into lofty morality, though the morality was sound enough. “Dismissed, Midshipman Keith.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Willie saluted, and walked up nine flights of steps in despair. The elevator had stopped at midnight.
CHAPTER 5
Orders for Midshipman Keith
The next day, Sunday, was sunny and clear, and the midshipmen were thankful. A review was scheduled for the pleasure of the commandant of the Third Naval District, a display of the whole military might at Columbia. The other sections of the midshipmen school at Johnson Hall and John Jay Hall were going to merge with the men of Furnald in an array of twenty-five hundred novice naval officers. After breakfast the midshipmen shifted into their dress blues and lined up in front of the hall, with rifles, leggings, and gun belts. They were inspected one by one as minutely as if each midshipman were about to have lunch with the admiral, rather than pass by him in a blur of heads. Demerits flew for a spot on the collar, shoes that failed to reflect the image of the inspector, hair a fraction of an inch too long. A flick of Ensign Brain’s hand on the back of a midshipman’s neck was an announcement of five demerits, duly recorded by the yeoman who walked close behind him. Willie was flicked. In his eminence of twenty-five demerits he floated lonely as a cloud. The closest contender had seven.
A sixty-piece band of midshipmen blasted brassy marches with more lung power than harmony, colors waved bravely on staffs, and fixed bayonets glittered in the morning sun as the ranks of midshipmen marched onto South Field. Behind the wire fences around the field were hundreds of spectators-parents, sweethearts, passers-by, college students, and satiric small boys. The band used up its repertoire, and was beginning again on Anchors Aweigh, when all the cohorts of Johnson, John Jay, and Furnald reached their places. They made a stirring show, the immense ranks and files of white gold-trimmed hats, bristling rifles, squared shoulders in blue, and young stern faces. Individually they were scared youngsters trying to remain inconspicuous, but from their aggregate there rose a subtle promise of unexpected awkward power. A bugle call knifed across the air. “PRESENT ARMS!” blatted the loudspeakers. Twenty-five hundred rifles snapped into position. The admiral strolled onto the field, smoking, followed by a straggle of officers, walking carelessly to symbolize the privileges of rank, but straggling at distances from the admiral strictly regulated by the number of sleeve -stripes on each straggler. Ensign Brain brought up the rear, also smoking. He put out his cigarette at the instant that the admiral did.
The admiral, short, stout and gray-headed, addressed the ranks briefly and politely. Then the performance began. Stepping proudly and confidently to the music after a week of rehearsal, the battalions passed in review, marching, wheeling, countermarching. The spectators clapped and cheered. The small boys marched raggedly outside the fence in imitation of the midshipmen, yelling. And the commandant watched with a smile which infected the usually grim faces of the school staff. Newsreel cameras, mounted on trucks at the edges of the field, recorded the scene for history.
Willie went through his paces in a daze of whirling thoughts about May and demerits. He was not interested in the admiral but he was mightily interested in making no more mistakes. No back was straighter, no rifle at a more correct angle in the whole parade than Willie Keith’s. The martial music and the majestic passing to and fro of the ranks thrilled him, and he was proud to be in this powerful show. He swore to himself that he would yet become the most correct, most admired, most warlike midshipman at Furnald Hall.
The music paused. The marching continued to a flourish of drums signaling the last maneuvers of the parade. Then the band crashed once more into Anchors Aweigh. Willie’s squadron wheeled toward the fence, preparing to make a flank march off the field. Willie stepped around the wheeling turn, his eye on the line, staying faultlessly in position. Then he fixed his eyes to the front once more, and found himself looking straight at May Wynn. There she stood behind the fence not twenty feet away in her black fur-trimmed coat. She waved and smiled.
“I take it all back. You win!” she cried.
“By the left flank-march!” bawled Roland Keefer.
At the same instant a squadron from Johnson Hall passed them and the leader shouted, “By the right flank-march!”
Willie, his eyes on May, his mind paralyzed, obeyed the wrong order; turned sharply, and marched away from his battalion. In a moment he was cut off from them by an oncoming file from Johnson Hall. He halted after prancing into a vacant patch of grass and realizing that he was alone. A row of newsreel cameras close by, all seemingly trained on him, photographed every move.
He glanced around wildly, and, as the last of the Johnson Hall file went past him, he saw his battalion marching away from him, far down the field beyond a stretch of empty brown grass. With each grunt of the tubas, each beat of the drums, Willie was becoming more and more alone. To get back to his place meant a solitary hundred-yard dash in full view of the admiral. To stand alone on the field another second was impossible. Spectators were already beginning to shout jokes at him. Desperately Willie dived into a single file of John Jay Hall midshipmen marching past him to the exit in the opposite direction from Furnald.
“What the hell are you doing in here? Beat it,” hissed the man behind him. Willie had landed unluckily in a group of the tallest John Jay men. He formed a distinctly unmilitary gap in the line of heads. But now it was too late for anything but prayer. He marched on.
“Get out of this line, you little monkey, or I’ll kick you bowlegged!”
The file jammed up at the exit and became disorderly. Willie turned and said swiftly to the big glaring midshipman, “Look, brother, I’m sunk. I got cut off from my battalion. Do you want me to get bilged?”
The midshipman said no more. The file wound into John Jay Hall. As soon as they passed the entrance the midshipmen dispersed, laughing and shouting, to the staircases. Willie remained in t
he lobby, staring uneasily at faded Columbia athletic trophies in the glass cases. He allowed fifteen minutes to pass, wandering here and there, keeping out of sight of the officer and midshipmen guarding the quarterdeck. The excitement of the review dissipated. The lobby became quiet. He screwed up his courage, and walked briskly toward the one guarded door. All the other exits were locked and bolted.
“Halt! Sound off.”
Willie drew up at the summons of the officer of the day, a burly midshipman wearing a yellow armband. A few feet away an ensign sat at a desk marking examination papers.
“Midshipman Willis Seward Keith, Furnald, on official business.”
“State business.”
“Checking on a lost custody card of a rifle.”
The OOD picked up a clipboard with a mimeographed form sheet on it. “You’re not logged in, Keith.”
“I came in during the foul-up after the review. Sorry.”
“Show your business pass.”
This was the spring-of the trap. Willie cursed Navy thoroughness. He pulled out-his wallet and showed the OOD a picture of May Wynn waving and smiling on a merry-go-round horse. “Take it from here, friend,” he whispered. “If you want, I bilge.”
The OOD’s eyes widened in amazement. He looked sidelong at the ensign, then straightened and saluted. “Pass, Keith.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Willie saluted and emerged into the sunlight, through the one loophole that military wisdom can never quite button up-the sympathy of the downtrodden for each other.
There were three ways back to Furnald: across the field, which was too exposed; a sneak trip around through the streets, which were out of bounds; and the gravel path along the field in front of the library. Willie took the gravel path, and soon came upon a working party of Furnald midshipmen folding up the yellow chairs which had been placed for the admiral’s party on the library steps. He briefly considered mingling with them, but they wore khaki, and they gave him queer scared looks. He hurried by them. The path lay clear ahead to Furnald-
“Midshipman Keith, I believe?”
Willie spun around in unbelieving horror at the tones. Ensign Brain, concealed by a granite post at the library entrance, was seated on a yellow chair, smoking. He dropped the cigarette, ground it out daintily with his toe, and rose. “Any explanation, Midshipman Keith, for being outside your room and wandering around out of uniform during a study hour?”
All Willie’s resolve and invention caved in. “No, sir.”
“No, sir. An excellent answer, Midshipman Keith, making up in clarity for what it lacks in official acceptability.” Ensign Brain smiled like a hungry man at the sight of a chicken leg. “Midshipman Auerbach, you will take charge of the working party.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“You will come with me, Midshipman Keith.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Willie got back into Furnald Hall with no trouble, under the escort of Ensign Brain. He was marched to the desk of the duty officer, Ensign Acres. The midshipmen on the quarterdeck regarded him with pale dismay. Word of his pile of demerits had spread through the school. This new disaster horrified them. Willie Keith was all their nightmares come to life.
“Holy cow,” exclaimed Ensign Acres, standing, “not Keith again.”
“The same,” said Ensign Brain. “The same paragon of military virtue, Midshipman Keith. Out of uniform, absent without leave, and violating a study period. No explanation.”
“This is the end of him,” said Acres.
“No doubt. I’m sorry for him, but obviously I had to pick him up.”
“Of course.” Acres regarded Willie curiously, and with some pity. “Don’t you like the Navy, Keith?”
“I do, sir. I’ve had a bad run of luck, sir.”
Acres lifted his hat, scratched his head with the same hand, and looked doubtfully at Brain. “Maybe we ought to just kick his behind up nine flights of stairs.”
“You’re the duty officer,” said Brain virtuously. “A couple of dozen midshipmen know of this already. For all I know the exec saw the whole business through his window.”
Acres nodded, and squared his hat as Brain walked off. “Well, this does it, Keith. Come along.”
They paused outside the exec’s door. Acres said in a low voice, “Between you and me, Keith, what the hell happened?”
The uniforms of both young men seemed to fade away for the moment, in the friendliness of Acres’ tone. Willie had a sudden flooding sense that this was all just a dream in Looking-glass Land, that he still had his health, that the sun still shone, and that outside Furnald Hall, just a few feet away, on Broadway, his predicament would seem a joke. There was just this one difficulty: he was inside Furnald Hall. Enmeshed in comic-opera laws, he had comically broken a few, and was going to a comic-opera doom. But this dance of nonsense impinged very strongly on the real world. It meant that in time his living body, instead of being carted across the Pacific, clad in blue, would be carted across the Atlantic, clad in brown. This fact bothered him violently.
“What’s the difference?” he said. “It was nice knowing you, Acres.”
Ensign Acres let the familiarity pass. He understood it. “Merton has a heart. Tell him the truth. You have a chance,” he said as he knocked.
Commander Merton, a little round-headed man with bristling brown hair and a red face, sat at his desk facing the door. He was partly hidden by a bubbling Silex. “Yes, Acres?”
“Sir-Midshipman Keith again.”
Commander Merton peered sternly around the coffee at Willie. “Good God. What now?”
Acres recited the indictment. Merton nodded, dismissed him, locked the door, and flipped a key on his interoffice talkbox. “I don’t want any calls or other interruptions until further notice.”
“Aye aye, sir,” rattled the box.
The commander filled a cup. “Coffee, Keith?”
“No, thank you, sir.” Willie’s knees were unsteady.
“I think you’d better have some. Cream or sugar?”
“Neither, sir.”
“Sit down.”
“Thank you, sir.” Willie was more scared by the courtesy than he would have been by rage. There was an air about the coffee of a condemned man’s last meal.
Commander Merton sipped in silence for endless minutes. He was a reserve officer, in peacetime an insurance sales manager with a fondness for boating and for the weekly reserve drills. His wife had complained often of the time he wasted on the Navy, but the war had justified him. He had gone into active service at once and his family was proud now of his three stripes.
“Keith,” he said at last, “you put me into the peculiar position of wanting to apologize to you for the Navy’s laws. The sum of demerits for your three new offenses, together with the twenty-five you have, puts you out of school.”
“I know, sir.”
“Those demerits make sense. The values were carefully weighed. Any man who can’t stay within the bounds of those penalties shouldn’t be in the Navy.”
“I know, sir.”
“Unless,” said the commander, and sipped for a while, “unless extraordinary, once-in-a-million circumstances are involved. Keith, what’s been happening to you?”
There was nothing to lose. Willie poured out the tale of his troubles with May Wynn, including her appearance outside the fence. The exec listened unsmilingly. When the story was done, he pressed his fingertips together and mused.
“In effect, your claim is one of temporary derangement due to a girl.”
“Yes, sir. But my fault, not hers.”
“Aren’t you the boy,” said Commander Merton, “who wrote the brilliant essay on the Frictionless Bearing?”
“Well-yes, sir.”
“That was a brutal essay question, designed to knock out all but the best. The Navy can’t afford, Keith, to lose a man with such a mind. You’ve done us a bad turn.”
Willie’s hopes, which had risen slightly, fell again.
“Supposing,
” said Commander Merton, “that I were to give you a total of forty-eight demerits and confine you to the school until graduation. Could you make the grade?”
“I’d like to try, sir!”
“Any offense would put you out-shoeshine, haircut, mussed bed. You’d live with your head on a chopping-block. Any bad luck would sink you-even the day before graduation. I’ve bilged men who had their ensign uniforms on. You wouldn’t have an evening with this girl, Miss Wynn, for three months. Are you sure you want to tackle such an ordeal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
Willie thought a moment. Why, really? Even transfer to the Army seemed a relief in comparison, after all. “I’ve never failed anything I’ve tried yet, sir,” he said. “I’ve never tried to do much, that’s true. If I’m no good I might as well find it out now.”
“Very well, get on your feet.”
Willie jumped to stiff attention. The movement brought him back into the Navy.
“Twenty-three demerits and confined till graduation,” snapped Commander Merton, in dry, bitter tones.
“Thank you, sir!”
“Dismissed.”
Willie came out of the office full of resolution. He felt in debt to Commander Merton. His roommates respected his silence when he returned to the tenth floor. He flung himself upon his books with zeal and hate.
That night he wrote a long letter to May. He promised that at the end of his imprisonment his first act would be to seek her, if she still wanted to see him. He said nothing about marriage. Next morning he got up with Keggs two hours before reveille and ground fanatically at ordnance, tactics, gunnery, navigation, and communications.
There was a visiting time each day between five and five-thirty, when midshipmen could talk with parents or sweethearts in the lobby or on the walk in front of the hall. Willie intended to study through it, but came downstairs to buy cigarettes at the vending machine. He was surprised to see his father seated in a corner of a leather-covered sofa, the cane resting across his knees, his head leaning wearily on an arm, his eyes closed.
