by Herman Wouk
“I happened to meet him socially, sir.”
“Why does he want you at this particular shindig?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.” But this sounded too surly, so he added, “I play the piano a bit. The admiral seems to enjoy it.”
“You do? I didn’t know that. I play a sax myself, a little bit, when I’m home. You must be pretty good to get requisitioned by the admiral. Like to hear you play sometime.”
“Delighted to oblige, sir, any time at your convenience.”
De Vriess regarded the invitation, smiling. “Tonight, hey? Well, far be it from me to dampen the admiral’s party. Let’s say your confinement begins at 0800 tomorrow. How’s that?”
“Whatever you say, sir. I don’t want any special treatment.”
“Well, we’ll leave it at that. Have a good time tonight. Don’t drown your sorrows too heavily.”
“Thank you, Captain. Is that all?”
“That’s all, Willie.” He returned the invitation to the ensign, who turned and walked out, closing the door rather hard.
Willie dashed up the ladder and ran to the clipping shack. His course was clear to him now. His position on the Caine was hopeless. The new captain would read the fitness report and mark him once for all as an unreliable fool-not a fool in Keefer’s sense, but in the Navy sense. There was only one thing to do: get off this cursed ship and make a fresh start. The penalty for his mistake was paid in the damning fitness report. “I can, and I will, erase that description from my record, so help me God,” he swore to himself. “But not on the Caine. Not on the Caine!” He was sure that the admiral would get him transferred. Several times the great man had embraced him after a chorus of Who Hit Annie in the Fanny with a Flounder, and had declared that he would do almost anything to get Willie on his staff permanently. “Just say the word, Willie!” He had been joking; but it was a joke with a core of truth, Willie knew.
He dragged the qualification course from a grimy drawer in the clipping shack. He calculated the number of lessons due by this date. He spent the rest of the morning and the whole afternoon grimly filling out those assignments. After dinner he presented himself in Lieutenant Adams’ room, shaved, glossy, and dressed in his last precious set of shore-laundered khakis. “Request permission to leave the ship, sir.”
Adams glanced at him sympathetically. His eye moved to the four assignments in Willie’s hand, and he smiled. “Granted. Give my love to the admiral.” He took the assignments and laid them in his work-basket.
As Willie mounted the ladder to the main deck he met Paynter coming down with both fists full of wrinkled, moldy letters. He said, “Anything for me?”
“I dropped yours in the clip shack. This is all old stuff that chased us around SoPac for a couple of months. Just caught up with us.”
Willie went aft. Sailors were milling around the mail orderly on the quarterdeck in the twilight as he shouted names and passed out letters and packages. Four dirty weather-stained canvas sacks of mail were heaped on the deck at his feet.
Harding was lying on his bunk in the gloomy clipping shack. “Nothing for me,” he said sleepily. “I wasn’t on the Caine mailing list way back then. You sure were.”
“Yes, my folks thought I was going straight to the Caine- Willie snapped on the dim light. There were several old crumpled letters from May and his mother, and a few others; also a battered oblong package that looked like a book. His nerves were shocked when he saw his father’s handwriting on the package. He tore it open, and found a black-bound Bible with a wrinkled note protruding from it.
Here’s the Bible I promised you, Willie. Luckily I found one right here in the hospital bookstore, otherwise I’d have had to send out for it. I guess Bibles go well in hospitals. If my handwriting seems a little cramped it’s because I’m sitting up in bed to write this. Everything’s proceeding on schedule, I’m afraid. They’re operating tomorrow. The surgeon is old Dr. Nostrand, who should know better than to try to kid me. But I appreciate his optimism only too eagerly, all the same.
Well, my son, take a look at Ecclesiastes 9:10, will you? I’ll let that stand as my last word to you. Nothing more now, but good-by, and God bless you.
DAD
Willie turned to the Bible passage with shaking hands.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
The words were underlined with wavering ink lines. Beside them Dr. Keith had written in the broad margin: “He’s talking about your job on the Caine, Willie. Good luck.”
Willie turned out the light, threw himself on his bunk, and buried his face in the sooty pillow. He lay so, motionless, for a long while, heedless of the creasing of his last shore-laundered khakis.
Someone reached in and touched his arm. “Ensign Keith?” He looked up. The admiral’s marine orderly stood just outside the shack. “Pardon me, sir. The barge is at the gangway for you.
“Thank you,” said Willie. He raised up on an elbow, covering his eyes with his hand. “Look, will you please tell the admiral- I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t come tonight? It seems I have the duty.”
“Yes, sir,” said the marine in a wondering tone, and departed. Willie dropped his face into the pillow again.
The next morning, Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg reported aboard the Caine.
PART THREE
CAPTAIN QUEEG
CHAPTER 11
Captain Queeg Relieves Captain de Vriess
Languishing in hack, Willie missed the important moment when Captain Queeg first set foot on the deck of the Caine.
Willie was taking his three-day confinement in the grand manner. Captain de Vriess had given him the run of the ship, but he was determined not to stir from the clipping shack except for bodily needs. When Queeg arrived Willie was hunched on his bunk over the remains of a frigid, dirty breakfast, mopping up the last yellow traces of egg with a piece of stale bread. He was proud of his penance. The meal, brought by the leisurely Whittaker through passageways, up ladders, and along the main deck, had lost all heat and acquired a heavy dressing of soot on the way. It seemed to Willie that adversity was toughening him rapidly; he felt virile and mature. This was a great deal of spiritual uplift to derive from a couple of cold black eggs, but Willie’s young spirit had a lot of rebound to it, like fresh rubber. Also, Whittaker had picked up coffee for the prisoner from the crew’s galley near the clip shack, strong and steaming. Willie was partly mistaking the glow of morning coffee for the maturing process.
Nobody was expecting the new captain. The gig was making a routine morning trip to the fleet landing for mail and a movie. The ragged boatswain and his two filthy assistants were appalled when Queeg accosted them and courteously ordered them to load his foot locker and bags into the boat. They had no way of warning the officer of the deck about their passenger, and so the new captain caught his first impression of the ship in its natural unpolished state.
The officer of the deck was Ensign Harding, entrusted with the gangway watch from four to eight only because Lieutenant Adams was reasonably certain that nothing complicated was going to happen in those early hours. He was dressed in wrinkled, sweaty khakis, and it was his misfortune to have no hips at all, so that his frayed gun belt sagged slantwise, precariously supported by his rump. His cap was pushed back to allow the breeze to fan his pale bald brow. He was leaning against the gangway desk, happily eating an apple, when blue sleeves with two and a half gold stripes rose along the ladder railings, followed by the face and form of Lieutenant Commander Queeg. Harding was not alarmed. Officers of such rank often came aboard; usually they were engineering specialists coming to the rescue of some vital machinery on the decaying Caine. He put down the apple, spitting out a seed, and walked to the ladder. Commander Queeg saluted the colors, and then saluted Harding. “Request permission to come aboard, sir,” he said politely.
“Permission granted.” Harding
gave a bare flip of a salute, Caine-style.
The new captain smiled slightly and said, “My name is Queeg.” He held out his hand.
Harding stiffened, gulped, pulled up his belt, saluted again, and tried to return the handshake, but Queeg had put his hand up to return the salute, so that Harding grasped empty air. Then the handclasp was fumblingly accomplished, and Harding babbled, “I’m sorry, Captain-I didn’t recognize you-”
“No reason you should. You’ve never seen me before.”
“No, of course, sir-Captain de Vriess wasn’t expecting you, Captain-would you like me to show you to the captain’s cabin? I’m not sure the captain is up yet-”
He whirled on the gangway petty officer, who was staring at Queeg as though trying to see into his soul. “Go tell the captain the new captain is here-”
“Yes, sir.” The petty officer, Winston, a stout ambitious boatswain’s mate second class, saluted Harding, then turned to the lieutenant commander and gave him a dazzling trainingcamp salute. “Welcome aboard, Captain.” He dashed up the starboard passageway.
Harding cast a despairing look around the quarterdeck, and decided that it was hopeless to try to change the new captain’s first impression of the Caine. Supposing, thought the OOD, he did chase away the two half-naked sailors who squatted at a tin tub, peeling potatoes; and called a halt to the din of the metal scrapers;, and ordered the gangway messenger to pick up the tattered comic books that flapped on the deck; and interrupted the curses of the two deck hands who were supposed to be repairing a life raft, but were actually about to come to blows over some moldly chocolate they had found on the raft; what then? There remained the stinking cabbage crates, and the pile of officers’ laundry, and the helmets with new names painted on them in red, drying in the sun, and the dirty nest of life jackets on which some sailor had slept, and the oozing black puddle of galley fuel oil which a cook had slopped on the deck. The Caine had been caught in its soiled underwear, and that was that. The world would have to wag on, somehow.
“Did you have a good trip, sir?”
“Middling good, thank you. Flew down from San Francisco. A little bumpy.” Queeg’s voice and manner were pleasant. He gave no sign of being disturbed at the dishevelment of the Caine, or even of being aware of it.
“My name is Harding, sir,” said the officer of the deck. “Assistant first lieutenant.”
“Been aboard long, Harding?”
“Just about three weeks, sir.”
“I see.” The new captain turned and watched the gig crew struggling up the ladder with his gear. “What’s the name of that coxswain?”
Harding knew him only as Meatball. “One moment, sir.” He dashed to the desk, peered at the watch list, and returned, feeling extremely foolish. “Dlugatch, sir.”
“New man?”
“No, sir. I-that is, in general they refer to him as Meatball.”
“I see.”
Queeg leaned over the railing. “Dlugatch, go easy with that pigskin bag.”
“Aye aye, sir,” came the grunt of the coxswain.
“I think,” said the new captain to Harding, “that you may as well stack my gear here until I talk to Captain de Vriess.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Try to keep it clear of that oil slick,” said Queeg with a smile.
“Yes, sir,” said Harding, quailing a little.
Winston reappeared. He had managed during his errand to brighten his shoes and snatch a clean white cap from somebody. The cap was squared on his head with just the right forward tilt. He saluted the officer of the deck smartly. “Captain de Vriess coming now, sir.”
“Very well.” Harding returned the unexpected salute, feeling like a hypocrite.
De Vriess emerged from the passageway, greeted the new commanding officer, and shook hands affably. They made a neat picture of the old and the new: De Vriess tieless and comfortable in faded khakis, Queeg correct in stiff white collar and fresh campaign ribbons. “Had your breakfast?” said De Vriess.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Would you like to come to my cabin?”
“Fine.”
“Let me lead the way-or do you know these 1200-tonners?”
“You’d better lead. I know more about the Bristol class.”
They exchanged pleasant smiles, and De Vriess led his successor forward. When they were out of earshot Winston said to the officer of the deck, “Looks like a good Joe.”
“For Christ’s sake,” said Harding, tightening his gun belt two notches, “let’s see what we can do about this quarterdeck.”
The two commanding officers sat in De Vriess’s cabin, drinking coffee. Queeg leaned back comfortably in the low black leather armchair. De Vriess was in the swivel chair at his desk.
“Kind of sudden, this whole deal,” said De Vriess.
“Well, I didn’t much like being yanked out of anti-submarine school,” said Queeg. “I’d moved my wife and family down to San Diego and we were all set for six good weeks, anyway. First shore billet I’d had in four years.”
“I’m sorry for your wife.”
“Well, she’s a pretty good sport.”
“They have to be.” After a moment of silent sipping De Vriess said, “You’re class of ’34?”
“Thirty-six,” said Queeg.
De Vriess knew this. He also knew Queeg’s precedence number, his class standing, and several other facts about him. But it was a nice point of etiquette to simulate ignorance. It was a courtesy, too, to place Queeg by mistake in an earlier class; it implied that Queeg was obtaining a command for which he was rather young. “They’re moving you fellows up now pretty fast.”
“I guess they want you somewhere in pretty much of a hurry, too. New construction, I suppose?”
“I don’t know. I hope they give me a supply depot in the middle of Utah. Some place with no water.”
“Not much chance of that.”
“Guess not.” De Vriess gave a false sigh of despair. Both men were stepping gingerly around the point uppermost in both their minds: namely, that De Vriess was getting off, and Queeg getting on, an obsolete ship. De Vriess said, “Had much to do with minesweeping?”
“Not a hell of a lot. Seems to me they might have sent me to Mine Warfare School. But I guess somebody in the Bureau had his pants on fire for some reason.”
“Well, hell, you know as much as I did when I came aboard. Not a whole lot to it- More coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
De Vriess took Queeg’s cup and set it on the desk. Queeg reached into his pocket. De Vriess, expecting him to pull out cigarettes, picked up a packet of matches. But Queeg brought out a couple of bright steel ball bearings the size of marbles, and began rolling them absently between the thumb and fingers of his left hand. “I imagine,” said Queeg casually, “that it’s mainly a matter of towing rigs of one sort and another.”
“That’s about all there is to it,” said De Vriess, even more casually. His question about minesweeping had not been random. In the back of his mind was the conjecture that Queeg was being groomed to command the squadron. But that possibility he now ruled out. He indicated a large battered blue book in the rack above his desk. “All the dope is in BuShips 270, the Minesweeping Manual. You might take a look at it one of these days.”
“I’ve read it. Seems simple enough.”
“Oh, it is. Pure routine. The boys back aft are pretty fair hands at it. And your first lieutenant, Maryk, is a crackerjack. You won’t have any trouble. We just ran off a very satisfactory exercise last week. Sorry you weren’t aboard.”
“Maryk,” said Queeg. “Regular?”
“No. There are only two regulars beside yourself. The way they’re hauling those boys off to radar schools and what not, you’ll probably have a solid reserve wardroom by January.”
“That’s one against how many-twelve?”
“Ten-theoretically. The complement is eleven. We’ve been down to seven and up again. There’ll be eleven now, coun
ting yourself.”
Queeg stopped rolling the steel balls, and began rattling them slowly in his fist. “Good bunch?”
“Not bad. Some good, some so-so.”
“Made out their fitness reports?”
“Yes.”
“Might I have a look-see?”
De Vriess hesitated. He would have preferred simply to talk about the officers, touching briefly on their defects and high-lighting their good points. He cast about for a diplomatic way to refuse the request, but none occurred to him. He pulled open his desk drawer. “If you want to,” he said, and passed the bundle of long white sheets to his successor.
Queeg glanced at the first three in silence, rolling the balls ceaselessly between his fingers. “Pretty nice. This about Maryk, especially. For a reserve.”
“He’s one in a hundred. Used to be a fisherman. He knows more about seamanship than some chief boatswain’s mates.”
“Fine.” Queeg read on. He flipped quickly through the sheets, ignoring the elaborate mathematical scores, glancing at De Vriess’s general summary of each officer’s character. De Vriess felt more and more strongly that he was abetting a kind of peeking. He was relieved when Queeg handed the reports back to him, saying, “Seems like a good wardroom, all in all.”
“As good as you’ll find, I think.”
“What’s the matter with this Keith?”
“Nothing. He’s going to be a good officer. Needed a kick in the pants, and I gave it to him. I don’t know but what I’ll rewrite that before I shoot it in. He’s willing and has a good head.”
“Why did he need a kick in the pants?”
“Well, he mislaid a despatch. Not an important one, but on general principles-when he’s just getting started, you know-I thought he ought to be brought up short.”
Queeg pursed his lips, then smiled agreeably. “I suppose no despatch is unimportant, really.”
