by Herman Wouk
“Not that I recall.”
“Were you engaged in reprimanding a signalman named Urban at length for having his shirttail out, while your ship was turning 360 degrees?”
“Who says that-Keith again?”
“Will you answer the question, Commander?”
“It’s a malicious lie, of course.”
“Was Urban on the bridge at the time?”
“Yes.”
“Was his shirttail out?”
“Yes, and I reprimanded him. That took me about two seconds. I’m not in the habit of dwelling on those things. Then there were these AA bursts, and that was what distracted me.”
“Did you point out these AA bursts to the OOD or the exec?”
“I may have. I don’t recall. I didn’t run weeping to my OOD on every occasion. I may very well have kept my own counsel. And since this shirttail thing has been brought up-and it’s a very typical Keith distortion, the whole business-I’d like to say that Ensign Keith as morale officer was in charge of enforcing uniform regulations and completely soldiered on the job. When I took over the ship it was like the Chinese Navy. And I bore down on Keith to watch those shirttails and he kept funking it and for all I know that’s another reason he hated me and circulated all this about my cutting the towline.”
“Ensign Keith did not testify on this point, Commander. Can you name any officer who will testify that he saw those AA bursts?”
“Maybe all of them did and then again maybe none of them did. It was fifteen months ago and we’ve been fighting a war and we’ve had much more on our mind than a few AA bursts off Pearl.”
“Did you drop a yellow dye marker off Jacob Island on the first morning of the invasion of Kwajalein?”
“I may have. I don’t recall.”
“Did your orders include dropping the marker?”
“I don’t recall. There have been several other invasions since.”
“Do you recall what your first mission was during the invasion?”
“Yes. To lead a group of attack boats to the line of departure for Jacob Island.”
“Did you fulfill that mission?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you drop the dye marker?”
“I don’t know for sure that I did drop one.”
“Commander, the orders of the Caine on that morning are a matter of record, and there’s no mention of dropping a dye marker. This court has heard repeated testimony to the effect that you did drop one. Do you deny that testimony?”
“Well, it sounds as though I may have dropped it to mark the line of departure plainly, if I did it, but it’s all dim in my mind.”
“How far was the line of departure from the beach?”
“As I recall, a thousand yards.”
“Did you stay close to the attack boats, leading them in?”
“Well, naturally, not wanting to swamp them with my bow wave, I was a bit ahead.”
“How far ahead?”
“This all happened a year ago-”
“Fifty yards? Twenty thousand yards?”
“Well, I don’t know. A couple of hundred yards, maybe.”
“Commander, did you run a mile ahead of the attack boats, drop your marker, and retire at high speed, leaving the boats to grope to the line of departure as best they could?”
Challee leaped to his feet. “The question is abusive and flagrantly leading.”
“I am willing to withdraw the question,” said Greenwald wearily, “in view of the commander’s dim memory, and proceed to more recent events.”
“Court desires to question the witness,” said Blakely. Greenwald retreated to his desk, watching the president’s face. “Commander Queeg,” Blakely said, “in view of the implications in this line of testimony, I urge you to search your memory for correct answers.”
“I am certainly trying to do that, sir, but as I say these are very small points and I’ve been through several campaigns since Kwajalein and the typhoon and now all this business-”
“I appreciate that. If necessary the court can call a recess for several days to obtain depositions from officers and men of that attack group. It will facilitate justice if you can remember enough to give a few definite answers on points of fact. First of all, can you recall whether your orders contained instructions to drop a dye marker?”
“Well, to the best of my recollection they didn’t. That can be checked against the record. But I believe I can say definitely that they didn’t, as I recall now.”
“Very well. Will you please repeat your explanation of why you dropped it?”
“Well, I guess to mark the line of departure plainly.”
“Were those boats on the line of departure when you turned away from the beach?”
“As near as I could calculate, yes. This was all a matter of tangent bearings and radar ranges of course, but I brought them as close to the line as was humanly possible.”
“In that case, Commander, if they were already on the line, what purpose did the dye marker serve?”
Queeg hesitated. “Well, you might say a safety factor. Just another added mark. Maybe I erred in being overcautious and making sure they knew where they were but then again I’ve always believed you can’t err on the side of safety.”
“From the time you made rendezvous with the boats, Commander, until the time you dropped the marker, what was the widest gap between you and the boats?”
“Well, distances are deceptive over water, particularly with those low-lying boats.”
“Did you stay within hailing distance of them?” Blakely said with a slight acrid impatient note.
“Hailing distance? No. We communicated by semaphore. I might have swamped them if I’d stayed within hailing distance.”
Blakely pointed at the redheaded officer at the far left of the bench. “Lieutenant Murphy informs the court that he was a boat officer in similar situations in three invasions. He says the common practice was to stay within hailing distance, never more than a hundred or a hundred fifty yards apart.”
Queeg, slumped in his seat, looked out from under his eyebrows at the lieutenant. “Well, that may be. It was a windy day and the bow wave made a lot of wash. It was simpler to semaphore than to go screaming through megaphones.”
“Did you have the conn?”
Queeg paused. “As I recall now Lieutenant Maryk did, and I now recall I had to caution him for opening the gap too wide.”
“How wide?”
“I can’t say, but at one point there was definitely too much open water and I called him aside and admonished him not to run away from the boats.”
“Why did your executive officer have the conn?”
“Well, he was navigator and for split-second precision instead of repeating a lot of orders back and forth- And it’s all coming back to me now. As I recall I dropped the marker because Maryk had opened the gap so wide and I wanted to be sure the boats knew exactly where the line of departure was.”
“Didn’t you direct him to slow down when you saw the gap widening?”
“Well, but it was all happening very fast and I may have been watching the beach for a few seconds and then I saw we were running away. And so that’s why I dropped the marker, to compensate for Maryk’s running away from the boats.”
“These are your factual recollections, Commander?” Blakely’s face was grave.
“Those are the facts, sir.”
Blakely said to Greenwald, “You may resume your examination.”
The lawyer, leaning against his desk, said at once, “Commander Queeg, did you make it a practice, during invasions, to station yourself on the side of the bridge that was sheltered from the beach?”
Queeg said angrily, “That’s an insulting question, and the answer is no, I had to be on all sides of the bridge at once, constantly running from one side to the other because Maryk was navigator and Keith was my OOD at general quarters and both of them were invariably scurrying to the safe side of the bridge so I was captain and na
vigator and OOD all rolled in one and that’s why I had to move constantly from one side of the bridge to the other. And that’s the truth, whatever lies may have been said about me in this court.”
Greenwald, slack-mouthed, his face expressionless, kept his eyes on the court members, who stirred in their chairs. “Commander,” he said, as soon as Queeg subsided, “do you recall an incident during the Saipan invasion when the U.S.S. Stanfield was fired on by a shore battery?”
“I most certainly do.” The ex-captain glowered at Greenwald, breathing heavily. “I don’t know what lies have been sworn to in this court about that little matter, but I’ll be glad to set the record straight on that, too. This same Mr. Keith we’re talking about went hollering and screaming all over the bridge making a big grandstand play about wanting to fire on the shore battery when the Stan field was in my line of fire and it was absolutely impossible to fire. And so I returned to my patrol station because that was my assigned duty, patrolling, not interdicting fire on shore batteries, and the plane was sunk without a trace and as for the Stanfield it was taking mighty good care of itself.”
“What is the turning circle of the Caine, sir?”
“A thousand yards, but-”
“Sir, in swinging a thousand yards didn’t the Stanfield move out of your line of fire to give a clear shot at the shore battery?”
“For all I know the Stan field paralleled my course. I never had a clear shot, that’s all I know.”
“Court desires to question the witness,” said Blakely.
Challee stood. “Sir, the witness is obviously and understandably agitated by this ordeal, and I request a recess to give him a breathing space-”
“I am not in the least agitated,” exclaimed Queeg, “and I’m glad to answer any and all questions here and in fact I demand a chance to set the record straight on anything derogatory to me in the testimony that’s gone before. I did not make a single mistake in fifteen months aboard the Caine and I can prove it and my record has been spotless until now and I don’t want it smirched by a whole lot of lies and distortions by disloyal officers.”
“Commander, would you like a recess?” said Blakely. “Definitely not, sir. I request there be no recess if it’s up to me.”
“Very well. Was the Stanfield hit during this incident?”
“No it was not, sir.”
“Was it straddled?”
“It was straddled, yes, sir.”
“And there was no way you could maneuver to lend it fire support? Did you try?”
“As I say, sir, it was in my line of fire and my estimate of the situation was that in the circumstances my duty was to get back on anti-sub station and not run around trying to make a grandstand play with pot shots at the beach and that was my command decision and I will stand on it as being in accordance with every existing doctrine, sir. It’s a question of mission. My mission was patrol.”
“Commander, wouldn’t you consider returning enemy fire, directed at yourself or at a nearby unit, an overriding mission?”
“Definitely, sir, if the range was clear. The Stanfield was in my line of fire, however.”
Blakely glanced around at the other court members, his eyebrows puckered, and then nodded shortly to Greenwald. The lawyer said, “Commander, on the morning of 18 December, at the moment you were relieved, was the Caine in the last extremity?”
“It certainly was not!”
“Was it in grave danger at that moment?”
“Absolutely not. I had that ship under complete control.”
“Did you tell the other officers that you had intended to come north, as Maryk did, at ten o’clock-that is, about fifteen minutes after the relief took place?”
Queeg plunged his hand into his coat pocket and brought out two glistening steel balls. “Yes, I did make that statement, and such had been my intention.”
“Why did you intend to abandon fleet course, Commander, if the ship wasn’t in danger?”
There was a long silence. Then Queeg said, “Well, I don’t see any inconsistency there. I’ve repeatedly stated in my testimony that my rule is safety first. As I say the ship wasn’t in danger but a typhoon is still a typhoon and I’d just about decided that we’d do as well riding it out head to sea. I might have executed my intention at ten o’clock and then again I might not have. I was still weighing all the factors but as I say I had that ship under control and even after Maryk relieved me I saw to it that it remained under control. I never abandoned my post.”
“Then Maryk’s decision to come north was not a panicky, irrational blunder?”
“His panicky blunder was relieving me. I kept him from making any disastrous mistakes thereafter. I didn’t intend to vindicate myself at the cost of all the lives on the Caine.”
“Commander Queeg, have you read Lieutenant Maryk’s medical log?”
“I have read that interesting document, yes sir, I have. It is the biggest conglomeration of lies and distortions and half-truths I’ve ever seen and I’m extremely glad you asked me because I want to get my side of it all on the record.”
“Please state your version, or any factual comments on the episodes in the log, sir.”
“Well, now, starting right with that strawberry business the real truth is that I was betrayed and thrown and double-crossed by my executive officer and this precious gentleman Mr. Keith who between them corrupted my wardroom so that I was one man against a whole ship without any support from my officers- Now, you take that strawberry business-why, if that wasn’t a case of outright conspiracy to protect a malefactor from justice-Maryk carefully leaves out the little fact that I had conclusively proved by a process of elimination that someone had a key to the icebox. He says it was the steward’s mates who ate the strawberries but if I wanted to take the trouble I could prove to this court geometrically that they couldn’t have. It’s the water business all over again, like when the crew was taking baths seven times a day and our evaps were definitely on the fritz half the time and I was trying to inculcate the simplest principles of water conservation, but no, Mr. Maryk the hero of the crew wanted to go right on mollycoddling them and-or you take the coffee business-no, well, the strawberry thing first-it all hinged on a thorough search for the key and that was where Mr. Maryk as usual with the help of Mr. Keith fudged it. Just went through a lot of phony motions that proved nothing and-like thinking the incessant burning out of Silexes which were government property was a joke, which was the attitude of everybody from Maryk down, no sense of responsibility though I emphasized over and over that the war wouldn’t last forever, that all these things would have to be accounted for. It was a constant battle, always the same thing, Maryk and Keith undermining my authority, always arguments, though I personally liked Keith and kept trying to train him up only to get stabbed in the back when- I think I’ve covered the strawberry business and-oh, yes, Stilwell’s court-martial. That was a disgraceful business, quite typical-”
Commander Queeg passed to a review of the court-martial, which was also, he said, a conspiracy of Keith and Maryk to discredit him. Then he discussed the failures of the laundry, the sloppiness of the mess statements and ship’s service inventories, and went on from subject to subject in this way, cataloguing his grievances against his officers, mainly Maryk and Keith. He hardly paused for breath. He seemed unable to pause. His narrative became less distinct as he talked, his jumps in time and place more sudden and harder to follow. He talked on and on, rolling the balls, his face glowing with satisfaction as he scored all these successive points in his vindication. Greenwald strolled to his desk and leaned against it, listening respectfully. The court members stared at the witness. Challee slouched, biting his nails. The sentences became longer and more meandering. Blakely began to glance at the clock.
Queeg went on for eight or nine minutes in this way, and ended up, “Well, naturally, I can only cover these things roughly from memory but if I’ve left anything out why you just ask me specific questions and I’ll tackle them one by o
ne, but I believe I’ve hit the main points.”
“It was a very thorough and complete answer, thank you,” Greenwald said. He drew two glossy black photostats from a folder on his desk. “Commander, I show you authenticated copies of two fitness reports you wrote on Lieutenant Maryk. Do you recognize them as such?”
Queeg took the papers and said grumpily, glancing at them, “Yes, I do.”
“Please read to the court your comment on Maryk of January 1944.”
“I’ve already stated,” Queeg said, “that at first he put on the act of a red-hot but cooled off in time-”
“We have that testimony, Commander. Please read the comment.”
Queeg read in a choked voice a highly laudatory description of Maryk.
“Thank you, Commander. That was January. Now by July, six months later, had the Caine already been through the Kwajalein and Saipan invasions?”
“Yes.”
“Had the following incidents already occurred: the water shortage, the coffee investigation, the Stilwell court-martial, and the suspension of movies, among others?”
Queeg hesitated. “Well, by then, yes, I think.”
“Please read your comment of 1 July on Lieutenant Maryk.”
Queeg stared at the photostat for a long time, hunched over, and began mumbling, “ ‘This officer has if anything improved in his performance of duty since the last fitness report. He is consistently loyal, unflagging, thorough, courageous, and efficient. He is considered at present fully qualified for command of a 1200-ton DMS. His professional zeal and integrity set him apart as an outstanding example for other officers, reserve and regular alike. He cannot be too highly commended. He is recommended for transfer to the regular Navy.’ ”
“Thank you, Commander. No further questions.”
Greenwald walked to his desk and sat. The witness looked toward the judge advocate appealingly. Challee stood slowly, like an old man with rheumatism. He approached the witness stand, and seemed about to speak. Then he turned to Blakely. “No cross-examination.”
“You are excused, Commander,” Blakely said. Queeg went out of the courtroom in the same way that Maryk had seen him pass through the wheelhouse a thousand times-shoulders hunched, head down, feet scurrying, the balls rolling in his fingers.
