by Herman Wouk
“This is known in literature,” Keefer remarked in a low tone, stirring his coffee, “as a pregnant pause.”
“Go easy on the smart talk for a while, Tom,” murmured Adams.
“I’m simply observing,” said Keefer, “that our new captain has a sense of drama. I thoroughly approve.”
“Knock it off,” whispered Maryk, as the knob of the captain’s door turned. Gorton came out and looked around the table. “All present, Captain,” he called through the open door. Queeg entered the wardroom. With a scrape of chair legs the officers stood. The Caine officers had not performed this courtesy in a year; several of them had never done it; but they all rose instinctively.
“Sit down, sit down, gentlemen,” said Queeg in a light, joking tone. He sat in his chair, laid a fresh pack of cigarettes and a packet of matches in front of him, and looked around with a smile as his officers took their seats. He tore open the pack deliberately, lit a cigarette, and took the two steel balls out of his pocket. Rubbing them softly back and forth in his fingers, he began to speak. Occasionally he glanced up at their faces; otherwise he kept his eyes on the cigarette or the steel balls.
“Well, gentlemen, I just thought we ought to get acquainted. We’re going to be shipmates for a long time. You’re probably wondering about me, and I confess I’m a little curious about you, though I’ve formed some pretty good, first impressions. I think this is a fine ship with a splendid wardroom of officers. I think we’re going to have a good cruise, and, I hope, as Captain de Vriess put it, some good hunting. I intend to give you every co-operation, and I expect the same in return. There is such a thing as loyalty upward, and such a thing as loyalty downward. I desire and expect to get absolute loyalty upward. If I do, you’ll get loyalty downward. If I don’t-well, I’ll find out why, and I’ll see to it that I do.” He laughed, indicating that this was a joke, and the officers nearest him smiled.
“Now, there are four ways of doing a thing aboard ship-the right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. I want things on this ship done my way. Don’t worry about the other ways. Do things my way, and we’ll get along- Okay. Now, are there any questions?”
He looked around. There were no questions. He nodded with smiling satisfaction. “Now, I’m a book man, as anyone who knows me will tell you. I believe the book is there for a purpose, and everything in it has been put in it for a purpose. When in doubt, remember we do things on this ship by the book. You go by the book and you’ll get no argument from me. You deviate from the book and you better have a half dozen damn good reasons-and you’ll still get a hell of an argument from me. And I don’t lose arguments on board this ship. That’s one of the nice things about being captain.” He laughed again, and received the same smiles. Keefer was slowly shredding a cigarette as he listened.
“I want you to remember one thing,” Queeg went on. “Aboard my ship, excellent performance is standard. Standard performance is sub-standard. Sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist. Now, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and this ship has been sailing a hell of a long time without me, and as I say, I regard you as a splendid wardroom of officers. If there’s anything that I want changed in anybody’s department you’ll find out about it fast enough. Meantime you will go on with your duties as before, remembering, as I say, that on my ship excellent performance is standard.”
Keefer dropped the shred of the cigarette slowly into his coffee cup.
“Well, now that I’ve shot my face off,” said Queeg, “I’ll give anyone else who wants to the chance to do the same. ... Nobody? Okay. Then let’s have taut watches beginning as of now, if you feel that in any way you haven’t been standing taut watches. And let’s have a taut ship. And, as I say, remember about loyalty upward, and loyalty downward, and about excellent performance being standard. And, as I say, I regard you as a fine set of officers, and it’s a privilege to be in a wardroom with you, and-and let’s keep it that way. And that’s all I have to say. And I thank you, and”-he laughed once more, an informal laugh that dismissed any tinge of martial austerity in what he had said-“all ashore that’s going ashore.”
He rose, picking up his cigarettes. The officers stood. “Don’t get up, don’t get up,” he said. “Thank you all.” He went into his cabin.
The officers looked around at each other. After a moment’s stillness Gorton inquired, “Anybody got anything on his mind?”
“When is the gig shoving off for the beach?” said Keefer.
“At 1800,” said Gorton. “I’m glad you asked, because you’ll have the gangway then.”
“In a pig’s eye,” said Keefer genially. “I’ll be in the gig. I’ve got me a date with a college graduate from the OWI office. She knows words of two syllables. It promises to be a highly intellectual evening, after life on the Caine.”
“Well, in words of one syllable, you’re a dead duck,” said Gorton. “New watch-standing orders. Four officers aboard at all times in port. Me or the captain, and all three-repeat, all three-officers of the duty section. I believe your section has the duty?”
Keefer looked around and said, “Okay. Who’s standing by for good old Tommy?”
“I’ll take it, Tom,” said Maryk.
“Thanks, Steve. I’ll do the same-”
“Sorry, boys,” put in Gorton. “No stand-bys.”
Keefer gnawed at his lips, scowling. Barrow rose, polishing his fingernails on his gabardine lapel. “I can take a dictionary along in the gig, Tommy,” he said daintily, “and bone up on two-syllable words. Does she know how to say ‘Gladly’?” There was a bark of male laughter from all the officers.
“Oh, look, Burt,” pleaded Keefer. “It’s absolutely pointless. We’re standing a cold-iron watch. There’s nothing to do but log vegetables aboard. Hell’s bells, in Tulagi we didn’t keep four aboard, with the Tokyo Express running every night.”
“Tom, I have never heard anything more persuasive,” said Gorton. “Your arguments move me to tears. Now will you go in and straighten out the captain?”
Carmody yawned and put his head on his hands. He said sleepily, “I see where the great American novel gets another chapter written tonight.”
Keefer rose, uttered a short, blistering obscenity, and went to his room. He picked up the volume of Aurelius from his cluttered desk, and flung himself on his bunk. For ten minutes he read the soothing stoicisms of the Roman emperor. Then Gorton poked his head into the room.
“Skipper wants to see you. Put on your saddle and report to the sawdust ring.”
“With pleasure,” growled Keefer, leaping out of his bed.
Captain Queeg was standing at the washbasin in his room, shaving. “Hello, hello, Tom,” he said. “Be with you in a minute.” He did not invite Keefer to sit. De Vriess had also ignored that formality with his department heads. They had been in the habit of dropping into the armchair without being asked. Keefer was not sure of his ground with Queeg. He leaned against the captain’s bunk, and lit a cigarette to show that he was not overawed. Queeg scraped away at his lathered face, humming. He wore only short drawers, and Keefer inspected with secret amusement the unprepossessing figure: flat hairless white chest, bulging little round stomach, and pallid skinny legs.
“Lousy light,” remarked Queeg, squinting at his image in the mirror. “A wonder De Vriess didn’t cut his throat.”
“We can get you a brighter bulb, sir.”
“Well, I don’t think that will be necessary- Tell me, Tom, what do you think of your assistant, Keith?”
“Willie? He’s a good kid.”
“I mean, as an officer?”
“Well, he has a lot to learn, like any ensign. He’ll be fine.”
“I’m not interested in what he’ll be. As of now, I agree with you that he’s a nice kid-and also extremely immature. Particularly for a custodian of registered publications.”
Keefer said hastily, “Sir, I’m certain Keith can handle that assignment to perfection-”
“What training has he had fo
r it?”
“Training?”
“I understand you had five months in communication school.”
“Yes, sir. But you don’t need that to-”
“Has he studied the registered publications manual?”
“I assume that in V-7 school they gave them the basic-”
“You can’t assume a damn thing in the Navy, Tom,” said Queeg sharply, shifting his eyes to Keefer’s face and away again. “Could he pass a test on that manual this afternoon?”
“Well, without warning-”
“Could you?”
“I certainly could,” snapped Keefer, offended.
Rinsing his razor, Queeg said pleasantly, “I’m sure of it. That’s why I think you should resume the duties of custodian.”
“But, sir-”
“The boy obviously knows nothing about classified stowage, Tom. Why, secret pubs are jammed and flopped around in that safe like garbage. And he has pubs in the radio shack, pubs on the bridge-not a single custody receipt to show for them, either. Is that your idea of registered stowage, hey?”
It was exactly Keefer’s idea, as a matter of fact. Willie had inherited an appalling mess, but the novelist had airily laughed, saying, “This isn’t a battleship, Willie. Forget about that custody-receipt malarkey. We’re all pals together on the Caine.” The ensign had innocently believed him.
Keefer said, “Well, of course, sir, things could be a bit more shipshape-I’ll get on his tail-”
“Nothing doing. You relieve him.”
“Sir, pardon me, there isn’t a ship in this squadron with a full lieutenant as custodian-it’s an ensign’s collateral duty-always is-”
“Well, I don’t want to be unreasonable about it,” said Queeg. “How long do you think it would take you to train up Keith as a custodian?”
“A few days, a week at most, and Willie can know that manual by heart.”
“Fine. We’ll let it go at that.”
“Aye aye, sir. Thank you.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” said Queeg. “Meantime I want you to relieve him. This evening.”
“What! And go through an inventory and a transfer report? And then, again, in reverse, three days from now?”
“We have lots of time and transfer forms.”
“Sir, a department head who’s a top watch-stander doesn’t have an infinite amount of time. If you expect efficient performance of my main duties-”
“I expect efficient performance of all your duties. This business may cut into your novel-writing a little. But of course, none of us is aboard to write novels.” In the poisoned silence that followed, Queeg opened his drawers. They slid to the deck, and he kicked them into a corner. “Well,” he said cheerfully, picking up a towel, “I hope the shower has hot water.”
Keefer said in a slow, strangled tone, “Sir, do you object to my working on a novel?”
“Not at all, Tom,” said Queeg, taking a faded blue bathrobe out of his narrow closet. “An outside interest of an intellectual kind is recommended for all officers, as a stimulant to clear thinking and alertness.”
“Fine,” said Keefer.
“So long as your department is in every respect up to the mark, of course,” said Queeg. “I mean all reports up to date, all changes entered, all correspondence cleared, all enlisted training at the maximum, your own training accomplished, and, in general, everything so perfectly in hand that nothing remains to be done in your spare hours. Until such time, I think the Navy has first call on you.”
“I don’t suppose there are many officers in the Navy who can say their departments are in such shape-”
“Not one in a hundred, maybe. The average officer nowadays is lucky if he can keep abreast of his work and get six hours’ sleep a night. I guess that’s why we don’t have many novelists in the Navy,” said Queeg with a giggle. “But Captain de Vriess described you as a man of exceptional ability and I have every reason to hope that his judgment was sound.”
Keefer put his hand on the doorknob. “Don’t rush off,” said the captain, unwrapping a soap cake. “Like to talk a bit more.”
“I thought you were going to take a shower, sir.”
“Well, we can still talk. Come along.
“Now, Tom, what kind of radio guard are we standing at the moment?” he shouted over the drumming of the water on the metal deck of the shower room.
A conference during a shower was new to Keefer. He pretended not to hear Queeg. After a moment the captain turned around, glowering from under his eyebrows as he soaped his groin. “Well?”
“I can’t hear you very well over that water, Captain.”
“I said what kind of radio guard are we standing?”
Two hours earlier, Keefer’s chief radioman had reported to the communications officer that Queeg had been in the shack, minutely cross-examining him about the radio guard. The new captain had been violently displeased to learn that they were merely copying local harbor broadcasts. So Keefer phrased his answer carefully. “Well, sir, we’re following standard Pearl Harbor procedure. We copy the harbor circuit.”
“What!” Captain Queeg looked amazed. “How about the Fox schedule? Aren’t we guarding that?” He lifted his leg and soaped underneath it.
“We pick up the skeds from the Betelgeuse. They guard for all destroyers in port. It’s standard procedure,” shouted Keefer.
“You needn’t scream. I hear you. Standard procedure for whom? For destroyers in the same nest as the Betelgeuse? We’re an hour away by motor whaleboat. What happens if an urgent despatch comes through for us?”
“They’re supposed to give it to us at once over the harbor circuit.”
“Supposed to. And suppose they don’t?”
“Look, Captain, suppose the Betelgeuse blows up? Suppose we do? You have to assume certain normal conditions-”
“You can’t assume a goddamned thing in this Navy,” said Queeg. “Get that idea out of your head. Nothing will be assumed on this ship from now on, not a goddamned thing.” He rinsed the soap from his body and shut off the water. “Hand me that towel, please.” Keefer complied.
“Now listen, Tom,” said the captain, in pleasanter tones, rubbing himself with the towel, “in this Navy a commanding officer gets a chance to make one mistake-just one mistake, that’s all. They’re just waiting for me to make that one mistake. I’m not going to make that mistake, and nobody on this ship is going to make it for me. I can keep my own radio gang from doping off, if it takes six months’ restriction apiece, and breaking them all to seamen second class, to wake them up. But I can’t do anything about some silly ape who dopes off on the Betelgeuse. Therefore I won’t have the Betelgeuse standing guard for me. We’ll stand our own guard, and we’ll stand it around the clock, and we’ll stand it beginning as of now. Is that clear?”
“That’s clear, sir.”
Queeg looked at him amiably. “Say, how about coming to the club with me and having a few?”
“Sorry, sir. Under the new watch orders I have to stay aboard.”
“Oh, damn,” said the captain regretfully, as though he and Keefer were both victims of a silly rule. “Well, another time. Say, I’d like to read your novel one of these days. Has it got plenty of sex in it?” He giggled hopefully.
Keefer said, “Will that be all now, sir?”
“That’s all, Tom,” said Queeg, shuffling down the passageway.
The communications officer went into his room. He lay back on his bunk and picked up Aurelius. He lit a cigarette and took quick, deep puffs. Soon he lay in a cloud of gray curling smoke, reading.
Willie Keith came to the quarterdeck at eleven o’clock that night, looking for Keefer. The gangway petty officer, spruce and surly in white uniform, told him that the OOD was inspecting the forward lines. Willie walked out on the breezy forecastle and found Keefer sitting on a folded blanket, his back against the anchor, his feet dangling over the side, his gun belt lying on the deck. He was smoking, and staring up at the black starry night.
“Hi,” said Willie.
“Hi.”
“Busy?”
“Not very. Composing a sonnet.”
“Sorry to disturb you.”
“Not at all. It’s a stinking sonnet. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been hitting that registered pubs manual for three hours. I think I’ve got the first part memorized.”
“Well done.”
“Mind if I go over and visit my friend on the Moulton?”
“Go ahead.”
“I looked in on Mr. Gorton to ask him. But he was asleep.”
“Hell, you, don’t need the exec’s permission to visit in the nest. Shove off.”
“Thanks. Lots of luck with the sonnet.”
In the immaculate wardroom of the Moulton several officers were sitting around in dejected attitudes, reading magazines or drinking coffee, but Keggs was not among them. Willie went up the passageway to Keggs’s room, and pulled aside the green curtain. His friend was slumped at the desk, snoring, his long face resting on a pile of unfolded blueprints. The desk lamp was shining directly upon his closed eyes. His hands dangled awkwardly, the knuckles brushing the deck. Willie hesitated, then touched Keggs’s shoulder. The ensign started up wildly, with a gasp. He glared at Willie in horror for a moment, then recognition dawned and he greeted his friend with a sweet, sad smile. “Hello, Willie.”
“What the hell are you studying blueprints for?” said Willie.
“I’m taking an engineering course.”
“Engineering? You’re a deck man.”
“Skipper’s got, all the engineering men studying deck and all the deck men studying engineering. Makes us rounded officers, he says.”
“That’s great,” said Willie, “providing you don’t have to run a department and stand watches and fight a war- I thought we could play a game of chess, maybe.”
“Jesus, I’d love it, Willie,” said Keggs cautiously. He peeked out into the passageway. “Looks like the coast is clear. I’m game. Come on.” They went into the wardroom. Keggs took down a board and a box of red and black plastic chessmen, saying to a pudgy lieutenant, “When will he be back?”
