by Herman Wouk
“Mr. Maryk!” Stilwell shouted. “Something up ahead, a ship or something, close aboard, sir!”
Maryk whirled, squinted out through the windows, and grabbed at the telegraph handles, hurling Queeg roughly aside. The captain staggered and grasped a window handle. “Hard right rudder!” the exec shouted, ringing up full astern on both engines.
Visibility had improved so that the sea was in sight through the driving spray some fifty yards beyond the bows. A vast dim red shape bobbed on the black swells, slightly to port.
The Caine veered quickly, shoved sideways by the wind as soon as it turned a little. The thing drifted closer. It was immense, long and narrow, longer than the Caine itself, bright red. Waves were breaking over it in showers of foam.
“Holy Mother of God,” said Keefer. “It’s the bottom of a ship.”
Everybody stared in awe at the horror. It slipped slowly down the port side, endlessly long and red, rolling gently under the breaking waves. “Destroyer,” Harding said in a choked voice.
The Caine was moving well clear of it. Part of the wreck was already gone in the gloom. “We’ll circle,” said Maryk. “All engines ahead full, Willie.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The OOD rang up the order. There was, a hideous sickness at the pit of his stomach.
Maryk went to the p.a. box and pressed the lever. “Now all hands topside keep a sharp lookout for survivors. We will circle the capsized ship twice. Report anything you see to the bridge. Don’t get excited. Don’t anybody get blown overboard, we have enough trouble as it is.”
Queeg, braced in a forward corner against the windows, said, “If you’re so worried about the safety of this ship, how can you go monkeying around looking for survivors?”
“Sir, we can’t just steam by and forget it-” said the exec.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I think we should look for survivors. In fact I order you to do so. I’m simply pointing out your inconsistency for the record-”
“Left standard rudder,” said Maryk.
“I should also like to point out,” said Queeg, “that twenty minutes before you illegally relieved me I ordered you to get rid of that helmsman and you disobeyed me. He’s the worst troublemaker on the ship. When he obeyed you instead of me he became party to this mutiny, and he’ll hang if it’s-”
A roaring wave broke over the Caine’s bridge and buffeted the ship far over to port, and Queeg tumbled to his hands and knees. The other officers slid and tottered about, clutching at each other. Once again the minesweeper labored in difficulties as the wind caught it and swept it sideways. Maryk went to the telegraph stand and manipulated the engines, altering the settings frequently, and shouting swift-changing rudder orders. He coaxed the ship around to the south, and steamed ahead until the hulk came vaguely in view again. Then he commenced a careful circling maneuver, keeping the Caine well clear of the foundering wreck. It was entirely awash now; only when a deep trough rode under it did the round red bottom break to the surface. The officers muttered among themselves. Queeg, his arm around the compass stand, stared out of the window.
It took forty minutes for the Caine to maneuver through a full circle around the lost ship against wind and waves, and all the time it wallowed and thrashed as badly as it had been doing since morning, and took several terrible rolls to leeward. Willie was scared each time. But he now knew the difference between honest fright and animal terror. One was bearable, human, not incapacitating; the other was moral castration. He was no longer terrorized, and felt he no longer could be, even if the ship went down, provided Maryk were in the water near him.
The exec was out on the wing, shielding his eyes from the hurtling spray with both hands, peering around at the heaving spires of black water, as the Caine steadied on north again. He came into the wheelhouse, trailing streams from his clothes. “We’ll come around once more and then quit,” he said. “I think it’s gone under. I can’t see it- Left standard rudder.”
Willie groped to the barometer once more and saw that it had risen to 29.10 He crawled to Maryk’s side and reported the reading, yelling into the exec’s ear. Maryk nodded. Willie rubbed his hands over his face, fevered with the sting of the flailing spray. “Why the hell doesn’t it let up, Steve, if the barometer’s rising?”
“Oh, Jesus, Willie, we’re thirty miles from a typhoon center. Anything can happen in here.” The exec grinned into the wind, baring his teeth. “We may still catch all kinds of hell-Rudder amidships!” he shouted through the doorway.
“Rudder amidships, sirs”
“Getting tired, Stilwell?”
“No, sir. Wrestle with this son of a bitch all day if you want me to, sir!”
“Very good.”
The door of the radar shack pushed open, and the telephone talker, Grubnecker, poked out his whiskered face. “Something that looks like a raft on the starboard quarter, sir, Bellison reports.”
Maryk, followed by Willie, went trampling through the wheelhouse to the other side of the bridge, shouting at Stilwell as he passed, “Hard right rudder!”
At first they saw nothing but peaks and troughs of water veiled by spray; then, broad on the beam, as the Caine rose to the top of a swell, they both spied a black dot sliding down the slant of a wave.
“I think there’s three guys on it!” shrieked Willie. He danced aft to the flagbag rails for a better look. A stiff gust of wind sent him sprawling on his stomach on the canvas cover of the flagbag. As he gasped and clutched wildly at the halyards to keep from rolling over the side, swallowing salt water from the puddle on the canvas, the wind stripped his trousers clean off his legs, and they went flapping away over the bulwark into the sea. He pulled himself to his feet, paying no attention at all to the loss.
Queeg stood in the doorway, face to face with the executive officer. “Well, Mr. Maryk, what are you waiting for? How about rigging your cargo net to starboard and having your deck force stand by with life buoys?”
“Thank you, sir. I was about to give those orders, if you’ll let me pass.”
Queeg stepped aside. The exec went into the pilothouse, and passed the instructions over the loudspeaker. He began to maneuver the lurching ship toward the object, which soon showed clear, a gray balsam raft, with three men on it and two more heads bobbing beside it in the water.
“You’ll be interested to know, gentlemen,” Queeg said to the officers while Maryk manipulated engines and rudder, “that I was about to issue orders to ballast and head into the wind when Mr. Maryk committed his panic-stricken criminal act. I had previously determined in my own mind that if the fleet guide had given no orders by 1000 I would act at my own discretion-”
Maryk said, “All right, Stilwell, head over to the right some more. Hard right-”
Queeg went on, “And I saw no reason for confiding my command decisions to Mr. Maryk, who seemed to be treating me like a feeble-minded idiot, and I’ll say as much over the green table, and there’ll be plenty of witnesses to-”
“Don’t run ’em down, Stilwell! Rudder amidships!” Maryk stopped the engines and went to the loudspeaker. “Now throw over your buoys!”
The survivors were pulled aboard. A white-faced, wild-eyed sailor, naked except for white drawers, streaked with broad smears of oil, with a bleeding gash in his cheek, was brought to the bridge by Bellison. The chief said, “It was the George Black, sir. This here is Morton, quartermaster third. The others are down in sick bay.”
Morton stammered a brief, horrid tale. The George Black had been thrown broadside to the wind and all combinations of engines and rudder had failed to bring it around. Ventilators, ammunition boxes, and davits were ripped off the decks by the seas; water began flooding the engine rooms; power failed; the lights went out. The helpless ship drifted for ten minutes, rolling further and further to starboard, with all hands screaming or praying, and finally took a tremendous roll to starboard and never stopped rolling. His next recollection was being under water in complete blackness, and after that he was at the s
urface, being dashed against the red bottom of his ship.
“We’ll keep circling,” said Maryk. He peered out at the streaked sea, visible now for several hundred yards. “I think it’s letting up some. Take him below, Bellison.”
“I am resuming the conn, Mr. Maryk,” said Queeg, “and we will drop the matter entirely until the storm has abated-”
Maryk turned wearily to the captain. “No, sir. I’ve got it. I respectfully ask you to lay below to your cabin. Contradictory orders will endanger the ship-”
“Are you putting me off my bridge, sir?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Queeg looked to the officers. Their faces were scared and somber. “Do all you gentlemen concur in this act? … Do you, Mr. Keefer?”
The novelist gnawed at his lips, and turned his glance to Maryk. “Nobody is concurring. Nobody has to concur,” the exec said quickly. “Please leave the bridge, Captain, or at least refrain from giving orders-”
“I shall remain on the bridge,” said Queeg. “The ship is still my responsibility. Mutiny doesn’t relieve me of it. I shall not speak unless your acts appear to me to be endangering my ship. In that case I shall speak even at pistol point-”
“Nobody’s pulling pistols on you, sir. What you say suits me.” The exec nodded to the officers. “Okay, no need for you to hang around. We’ll have a meeting as soon as weather permits.”
The officers began straggling out of the wheelhouse. Keefer went up to Willie, saluted, and said with a pallid grin, “I am ready to relieve you, sir.”
Willie looked at the clock in astonishment. Time had stopped running in his mind. It was a quarter to twelve. “Okay,” he said. The formulas of the relieving ceremony came mechanically to his lips. “Steaming on various courses and speeds to look for survivors of the George Black. Steaming on boilers one, two, and three. Depth charges set on safe. Condition Able set throughout the ship. Last time I saw the barometer it had risen to 29.10. Fleet course is 180, but we’ve lost contact with formation due to jammed radars, and I don’t know where we are. About one hundred and fifty miles east of Ulithi, I’d say. You can check our 0800 dead reckoning position. We’re in the same place, more or less. The captain has been relieved under Article 184, and is still on the bridge. The executive officer has command and is at the conn. I guess that’s all.”
“Just a routine watch,” said Keefer. Willie smiled ruefully.
Keefer saluted. “Okay, I’ve got it.” He grasped Willie’s hand, pressed it warmly, and whispered, “Good work.”
“God help us all,” murmured Willie.
PART SIX
THE COURT-MARTIAL
CHAPTER 31
Counsel for the Defense
Watery sunlight of a misty San Francisco morning, falling on the desk of Captain Theodore Breakstone, USNR, district legal officer of Com Twelve, illumined a fat manila folder on top of an untidy clutter of papers, labeled in crude red-crayon letters, “CAINE.” Breakstone, a thick-faced man with bristly hair and a large knobby nose, sat in his swivel chair with his back to his desk, staring out at the harbor, regarding with mingled yearning and irritation an attack transport far below which swung slowly in the tide current to its anchor chain. Captain Breakstone longed to go to sea, and his dream was to command a transport-he was an amateur boat enthusiast, and he had navigated a destroyer briefly in World War I-but he was trapped by his excellent civilian record as a lawyer. The Bureau ignored his applications. He assuaged his disappointment by being salty in language and demeanor, and growling “hell” and “damn” as often as possible.
In his lap was a sheaf of long white sheets of paper ruled on either side with a blue line: the report of the board of investigation into the unauthorized relief of Lieutenant Commander P. F. Queeg, commanding officer of the U.S.S. Caine. Captain Breakstone had held thousands of such sheafs in his hairy hands during the past three years. The phrases, the attitudes, the glints of emotion through the stilted rubbish of words, were as commonplace to him as the nicks and grooves of an old familiar staircase to an old scrubwoman. He could not recall a case that had unsettled and depressed him more. The inquiry had been a botch. The recommendations were stupid. The facts of the case, so far as they had been uncovered, were a hideous tangled mess. He had turned away from the desk, halfway through a re-examination of the report, to fight down a nauseous headache such as he got from reading on a bumpy train.
He heard a tapping on the glass partition between his cubicle and the clattering office full of desks, files, and blue-shirted Waves. He swiveled around, throwing the papers on his desk. “Hello, Challee. Come in.”
A lieutenant commander walked in through the open doorway. “I’ve thought of a guy, sir-”
“Good. Who?”
“You don’t know him, sir. Barney Greenwald-”
“Regular?”
“Reserve, sir. But a pretty red-hot officer. Fighter pilot. Lieutenant-”
“What the hell does a fly boy know about law?”
“He’s a lawyer in civilian life, sir-”
“A lawyer and a fighter pilot?”
“He’s quite a guy, sir-”
“Greenwald, you say his name is? Dutch, or what?”
“He’s a Jew, sir-” Captain Breakstone wrinkled his big nose. Challee pulled himself a little more erect. He stood with one hand in his jacket pocket, the other holding a black portfolio, his attitude nicely mixing familiarity and deference. He had wavy, sandy hair, and his round face wore a look of good-humored alertness. “-but as I say, sir, quite an exceptional guy-”
“Hell, I’ve got nothing against Jews, you know that. This is a damn touchy case, that’s all-”
“I’m sure he’s the guy for us, sir-”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I know him pretty well, sir. He was at Georgetown Law when I was going through-class ahead of me, but we got friendly-”
“Well, sit down, sit down. What’s he doing around Com Twelve?”
Challee seated himself in the chair beside the desk, holding his back straight. “He’s just come off the sick list. He was hospitalized for third-degree burns. They’ve got him on temporary limited duty, officer personnel placement for air. He’s waiting for a medical okay to go back to his squadron-”
“How did he get burned? Shot up?”
“No, sir. Crashed a barrier. His plane burned up but they pulled him out-”
“Not so heroic-”
“Well, so far as flying goes, I don’t know that Barney’s any great shakes. I think he’s got two Japs-”
“What makes you think he’d be good for the Caine case?”
“Well, sir, Maryk is a dead pigeon, the way I see it, and Barney goes for that kind of case.” Challee paused. “I guess you’d call him odd in a way. Very odd. I’m used to him. He’s from Albuquerque. Barney is interested as hell in the Indians. You might say he’s nuts on the subject. He specialized in Indian cases after getting out of law school-won a lot of them, too. He was working up a pretty good general practice in Washington, before he joined up-”
“What was he, ROTC?”
“No. V-7, then switched to air.”
Breakstone pulled at his nose with thumb and forefinger for several seconds. “Sounds like he might be pinko.”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Not yet, sir. Thought I’d ask you first.”
Captain Breakstone laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. He swiveled from side to side. “Christ, can’t we get a regular? If there’s one kind of smell we don’t want to have hung on this case, it’s regulars versus reserves-it’s bad enough the way it is-”
“I talked to eight guys, sir, on the list you gave me. It’s a hot potato. They’re afraid of it. And two guys have been detached and gone to sea-”
“Did you talk to Hogan?”
“Yes, sir. He begged off practically with tears in his eyes. He says it’s a lost case and all the defense
counsel can do is get himself permanently fouled up with the Navy-”
“That isn’t so-”
“I’m just quoting him-”
“Well, maybe it is so, at that, a little bit.” Breakstone pulled at his nose. “Hell, somebody’s got to defend the case. When can you get this Greenwald up here?”
“I guess this afternoon, sir-”
“Get him up here. Don’t tell him what it’s about. I want to talk to him first.”
Lieutenant Greenwald came to Captain Breakstone’s office late that day. After a brief, grumpy questioning the legal officer gave him the Caine folder. Next morning when the captain came to his cubicle he found the skinny pilot waiting outside, slumped on a chair.
“Well, come on in, Greenwald. Think you can handle the case?” He took off his raincoat and draped it on a hanger, noticing that the folder lay on his desk.
“I’d rather not, sir.”
Breakstone glanced around in annoyed surprise. The pilot stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking at his shoes. He had a loose, adolescent mouth and a pale face, curly brown hair, and long dangling hands. “Looks more like Harold Teen than a red-hot Jewish lawyer,” thought Breakstone, as he had thought the previous day, too. He said, “Why not?”
“Well, several reasons, sir.” Greenwald kept his eyes bashfully down. “If there’s any other case you need help on-I mean I don’t want to seem uncooperative-”
“What’s the matter? Case too tough for you?”
“Well, I don’t want to waste your time with my opinions on it, sir-seeing that-”
“I’m asking you to waste my time. Sit down.” Breakstone’s eyes were drawn to the terrible fire scars on the pilot’s hands, hanging between his knees; the dead blue-white grafted skin, and the raw red edges, and the wrinkled stringy scar tissue. He looked away with an effort. “Challee told me you were a great one for defending the underdog-”
“These men are no underdogs, sir. They deserve to get slugged.”
